Town and Country House Painting

HARRISON BROTHERS.  TOWN AND COUNTRY HOUSE PAINTING.

Philadelphia: 1883. Oblong 4to. (9 x 11 inches). Publisher's half-morocco, all edges gilt. 15 pages, leaf with 60 mounted enamel paint samples, 35 chromolithographic plates, each with an accompanying leaf of text. First, and only, edition.

The Harrison Brothers Paint Company sold premium house paint in America during the eighteen-eighties, a colorful era of Queen Anne architecture and aesthetic sensibilities.  They published this sample book as a lavish trade catalogue to illustrate the effects of various color combinations on house exteriors.  The book was not sold but offered to prospective customers for a deposit of fifteen dollars, which was refunded when the client returned the book.  The book features one leaf containing sixty mounted enamel paint samples, each one-inch square, and thirty-five full-page chromolithographic plates of buildings from elaborate suburban mansions to rural villas, cottages, town houses and store fronts.  The accompanying text pages describe the effects of the paint combinations and are keyed back to the numbered paint samples.  The work is rare and is the most elaborate production we have ever seen on the subject.  It was not mentioned by Dornsife in his exhaustive study of American house paints of the period and while there are six copies listed in OCLC, we are unaware of any other copy being offered at auction or in commerce.  In addition, there is a fifteen page introduction which outlines the procedures used in painting and the theory behind color use.  This is a very good copy despite some occasional marginal foxing and the front hinge starting but firm.

SOLD