Alexander Constantine Ionides Album

A lady is shown preparing for a masked ball. She stands in her boudoir while her maid fastens her dress at the back. Two figures can be seen entering the room through the door behind the maid. The plumed headdress of the lady and her costume date this print to the 1830s. There is no inscription to identify this print but it could possibly be after a genre painting of the period.

Purchased with Art Fund support and assistance from the Friends of the V&A, the Julie and Robert Breckman Print Fund, and the Marks Trust

Structure and contents of the prints and drawings album of A.C. Ionides

18th or early 19th century album, 54 fols., 235 x 180 mm.

Case binding of half maroon leather with paper sides, blind roll tooled across corners and down board edge at joint, three line gold tooling across spine to make five panels into which a centre decoration of lyres has been tooled in gold. The album is double-sided, to accommodate prints from one end and drawings from the other (stamped PRINTS and DRAWINGS in gold on the spine).

The book block comprises eight gatherings of various coloured papers (ivory, grey, pink, brown, green, buff, blue). Originally each gathering appears to have been made up of three sheets of folio quired with added compensation guards. Some leaves have been cut out and in other instances prints or drawings have been tipped to the compensation guards. The book block has been sewn all along on two parchment tapes and its first and last leaves have been adhered to the case as the pastedown.

Many of the prints in the album have been trimmed. Unless stated as plate sizes, paper sizes are given.

Following its acquisition, the album was foliated continuously from the start of the PRINTS section on fol. 1r to the start of the DESIGNS section on fol.54v. As a result, the folio sequence appears to run in reverse when approached from the start of the DESIGNS section on fol. 54v. The contents of the album have also been individually inventoried, from E.1349:1-2001 to E.1349:94-2001.

In the following list, numbers prefixed by the letters 'F', 'L' and 'B' refer, respectively, to the catalogue numbers in A.J. FINBERG, 'Edward Calvert's Engravings', The Print Collector's Quarterly, 17 [1930], pp.139-53, R. LISTER, Edward Calvert, London [1962] and D. BINDMAN, The Complete Graphic Works of William Blake, London [1978]. Bartsch references are to The Illustrated Bartsch, 1, Netherlandish Artists (ed. L.J. SLATKES), New York [1978].

E.1349:49-2001