George Vivian and Family Scrapbook. Scrapbook compiled by members of the Vivian family throughout the 19th century. n.p. c1800-1900. Solid folio (48x30cm) half calf (rebacked); some 120 leaves of blue paper packed both sides with ephemera, prints and news clipping, and many extra inserts. Au$2,000
It won't take as long to go through this as it took the two or three or four generations of Vivians to compile it but still, it'll take a while. A cavalcade of the 19th century as lived by the privileged. On the first page are tickets for prestigious seats at the coronation of George IV - more elaborately produced as security against forgery than a banknote it looks to me. On the last page are programmes and menus for the 1902 South African dinner of the 3rd Scots Guards and the catalogue of the band's instruments sold by auction at the end of the dinner. In between, the adventures, pre-occupations and fancies of the Vivians.
There were plenty of Vivians, well to do Vivians, and more than one George - the name that reappears on European travel ephemera in the 1820s and 30s - but the places and dates defy coincidence and let us identify George as George Vivian 1798-1873 of Claverton Manor, painter and artist of luxurious books of views of Portugal, Spain and Italy, member of the Society of Dilettanti, and big-wig in the English art world - he was one of the commissioners for the new parliament.
I took photos of some early pages and stopped before it got out of hand. In those pages you can see: the tickets to George's coronation; one of three quarto size broadsides printed in Hyde Park during the peace celebrations in 1814; a mock 1823 banknote issued by Self & Co. of Threadneedle Street promising to give the most superior haircut in Europe or forfeit one hundred pounds; an 1823 Florentine theatre bill; a folio four page catalogue in French and English of goods sold by Couture, perfumer and liquorist of Florence; a Spanish bill for a Donizetti opera and a Catalan diligence ticket from the 1830s; an 'extraordinary gazette' from Madrid announcing the death of Ferdinand, a handbill for Donizetti's Anna Boleyn and a broadside sonnet to Queen Isabel II; a collection of illustrious continental visiting guards that surprised me with the variety and sophistication of printing and card stock; the first part of a long broadside programme for Victoria's coronation - the rest on the following two pages, followed by the similar programme for the wedding of Victoria and Albert; a large 1836 bill of fare for a Berlin restaurant - sorry, wrong page, a bill of fare for a French restaurant facing a papal certificate for a relic and a sketch of a masquarede parade; some English visiting cards, a group invitation from Vivian, Lord Sandwich, Mr Hope and Lord Redesdale to The Stadium at Cremorne House (this was de Berenger's sporting club - see The Morning Post, July 16 1836, for an account of the splendid fete champetre), an invitation to privately view Strawberry Hill and a sketch of a woman; a large 1835 ticket of residence for St Petersburg.
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