Watch List notes:

Sommerville, Maxwell. ENGRAVED GEMS: THEIR HISTORY AND AN ELABORATE VIEW OF THEIR PLACE IN ART. Philadelphia, 1889. Tall 4to, original maroon cloth, lettered and elaborately decorated in gilt. Frontispiece portrait; 783, (1) pages; 104 plates; text illustrations. Moderate general wear; worn endpapers and repaired hinges; very good or better. An impressive, well-illustrated work. Sinkankas 6215: "This is Sommerville's largest, most elaborate, and most important monograph; as such, it completely incorporates the content of his earlier work of 1877 which bears a confusingly similar title... it is also a complex work that actually consists firstly of a long, interesting work on engraved gems generally, and secondly the catalog of his collection, plus additional matter as descriptions of several famous gems in European collections and a series of facsimile letters congratulatory of Sommerville's achievements... This splendid treatise contains so much interesting matter that in places it is fully rewarding reading even if one has no special interest in engraved gems. While the paper quality is good, the large size, weight, and an insufficiently stout binding result in most copies loosening along inner hinges and eventually disbinding; for this reason, good sound copies are very scarce." Ex A Van Rensselaer Library, with bookplate on pastedown.