I have been in the rare and antiquarian book business for over forty years; my family has been in the rare books business since 1876. Rare books are in my blood.
Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, The
London: FORE-EDGE PAINTING. MISS C.B. CURRIE, artist. RIVIÈRE & SON, binders. GOLDSMITH, Oliver. The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith. With Biographical Introduction by Professor Masson. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1902Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1902. Item #05153
A Splendid Example of Miss Currie's Work
FORE-EDGE PAINTING. MISS C.B. CURRIE, artist. RIVIÈRE & SON, binders. GOLDSMITH, Oliver. The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith. With Biographical Introduction by Professor Masson. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1902. The Globe Edition.
With a very fine fore-edge painting by Miss C.B. Currie of Lucan House, Dublin. Inserted limitation leaf at front "This is No. 157 of the Books/with Fore-edge Paintings/by/Miss Currie/The Painting under the gold/is a view of/Lucan-House, Dublin./Signed/ C.B. Currie"
Octavo (7 1/8 x 4 3/4 inches; 180 x 121 mm.). [ii, Miss Currie signed limitation, verso blank], [i-v], vi-lx, [ii], [1]-695, [1] pp. Inserted photogravure portrait frontispiece of "Mr. Quick as Tony Lumpkin".
Bound ca. 1931 by Rivière & Son for Henry Sotheran. Full dark blue straight-grain morocco, covers elaborately tooled in gilt and blind, spine with five raised bands, decoratively tooled in gilt and blind, and lettered in gilt in compartments. Gilt -ruled board edges, gilt decorated turn-ins, gray endpapers, all edges gilt. With the bookplate of Brooklyn Public Library (Ramsay fund) on front paste-down. Housed in a fleece-lined quarter black morocco clamshell case, spine with five raised bands, lettered in gilt in compartments. A very fine example.
"The miniature painter "Miss C.B. Currie" (b. December 12, 1849; d. April 2, 1940) was one of the most prominent fore-edge artists in the twentieth century. A master of the art of miniature painting, she excelled as a copyist working for Henry Sotheran Booksellers, London. She became famous for her miniature paintings applied to two art forms. First on ivory, mounted on Rivière bindings and named by her employer as "Cosway" bindings. Later she expanded her work into the art of painting on the fanned edge of a book -- called a fore-edge painting. Most of these paintings were signed and numbered by the artist. Whereas fore-edge painting history is replete with unknown artists, Currie is a notable exception. Even today, many fore-edge artists remain anonymous. In the book world, the name Miss C.B. Currie is widely recognized, yet her personal life and real name remained guarded and unknown until now. It turns out her name was, in fact, partly a pseudonym. Though her work is highly prized, there is no known published biography. Her correct full name was recently discovered to be Caroline Billin Curry. During her entire artistic career Curry used the slightly altered version of her name "Currie". Her true full name is not to be found in any published record of her work from Sotheran's. Her private affairs remain mostly unknown to us, and sadly no portrait photograph is known… The earliest year Currie fore-edge paintings appear in Sotheran catalogues is a 1913 supplemental leaf, and after that not until 1924 (see Currie 20). Since nineteen fore-edge paintings were made prior to 1924 and none of these appear in the Sotheran catalogues available to me from 1910-1923, it is unclear as to when the fore-edge painting effort really began. She may have made a few fore-edge paintings from ca. 1911 to 1914, and then discontinued until after the war. The number 172 was reached by 1931 and it seems unlikely that many more were done after that date…" (Weber. Catalogue Raisonné (2010) p. 273.
Laid-in is the original catalog description and receipt from Zeitlin & Ver Brugge, Los Angeles, dated March 5th, 1986.
Provenance: Bloomsbury Book Auctions, London, Feb. 6th,1986, lot 153, purchased by E. Joseph, London; Sold to Zeilin Ver Brugge (1986); Sold to Randall Moscovitz (1986).
Weber. Annotated Dictionary of Fore-Edge Painting… Catalogue Raisonné No. 157 (p. 343 with color photograph).
Price: $8,500.00