The tale of Lohengrin Knight of the Swan : after the drama of Richard Wagner / by T. W. Rolleston ; presented by Willy Pogàny.
Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883)
Category
Books
Date
1913
Materials
Place of origin
London
Collection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 3101192
Summary
Richard Wagner, tr. T.W. Rolleston, The Tale of Lohengrin, Knight of the Swan, after the Drama of Richard Wagner … Presented by Willy Pogàny, London: G.G. Harrap, 1913.
Full description
After several decades of struggle against poverty, indifferent audiences and European politics, the composer Richard Wagner finally came into his own in the 1860s, when the new king of Bavaria, Ludwig II, threw him the lifeline he needed. With Ludwig's patronage, Wagner's career blossomed; his operas were performed, his theatre at Bayreuth was built, and by the time he died in 1883 he was something of an international celebrity. In the decades following his death, the Wagner industry continued to expand, with numerous publications devoted to his life and works, including specially illustrated editions of his operatic texts, by leading book artists of the time. Arthur Rackham's series of pictures for Wagner's 'Ring Cycle' is well known; another illustrator who used Wagner depictions to help to make his name was Willy Pogàny (1882-1955), who was born in Hungary and studied in Munich and Paris before coming to London shortly before the First World War. His Art-Nouveau-style illustrated versions of three Wagner operas, 'Tannhaüser', 'Parsifal' and 'Lohengrin', published in London between 1911 and 1913, together with a 1910 version of Coleridge's poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', are often described as his masterpieces. He left England for the USA shortly afterwards and had a successful career as an illustrator for books and magazines and a Hollywood set designer. Anglesey Abbey Library has copies of 'Tannhaüser' and 'Lohengrin', each luxuriously bound. 'Lohengrin' is in red morocco, left plain apart from a busy central design on the upper board, made up of multicoloured leather onlays and depicting motifs from the opera: a swan, a chalice and a shield. The binding is signed 'Bumpus Ltd, Oxford Street', but were probably the work of one of the major London West End binderies, or possibly Bayntun's of Bath. The Bumpus firm, founded in Clerkenwell around 1790 by Thomas Bumpus (1754-1832), flourished during the nineteenth century as booksellers and publishers, moving first to Holborn and then to Oxford Street, where by the turn of the twentieth century it had become one of the pre-eminent London booksellers, which regularly commissioned binding work from a range of leading contemporary workshops. Text adapted from David Pearson's entry in 'Treasures from Lord Fairhaven's Library at Anglesey Abbey', 2013, cat. 43, pp. 134-5.
Bibliographic description
[200] p., [1] leaf of plates : ill. (some col.) ; 8vo. Provenance: Twentieth-century armorial bookplate, signed G.S. 1924: ‘Urban Huttleston Rogers Broughton’ [i.e.: Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966)]. Binding: Twentieth-century full red morocco; gilt fillets to form an outer border; pictorial centrepiece on upper board of multicoloured morocco onlays with gilt tooling; spine gilt, lettered direct (gilt-tooled): 'Lohengrin Wagner 1913'; sewn onto five raised bands; single gilt fillet on board edges; gilt textblock edges; gilt-rolled turn-ins; green watered-silk endleaves. Binder's stamp on rear pastedown: Bumpus Ltd. Oxford St. W.'.
Provenance
Acquired by Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) and then bequeathed by him to the National Trust with the house and the rest of the contents in 1966.
Makers and roles
Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883), author Willy Pogány (1882-1955), illustrator Thomas William Hazen Rolleston (1857-1920), author