Lysons, Samuel
Rodmarton, near Tetbury 1763 – 1819 Cirencester

Reliquiae Britannico-Romanae, containing figures of Roman Antiquities discovered in various parts of England.

London, Printed by T. Bensley, for Cadell and Davies, etc., [1801–] 1813–1817 (but 1819)

Three volumes in one, folio (566 × 407 mm):

Volume i, part 1: (5) ff. letterpress, unsigned (title dated 1813, Advertisement, Contents of Vol. i, Description of the Plates), paginated (i)–iv (2) 1–4; plus engraved frontispiece (Reliquiae Britannico Romanae i.), part-title (Figures of Mosaic Pavements discovered at Horkstow in Linconshire), and seven numbered plates (of which 4 double-page): all in fine hand-colouring, and uncoloured dedication plate (to George Prince Regent). ▬ Volume i, part 2: (6) ff. letterpress, unsigned (Description of the Plates), paginated (1)–12; plus engraved part-title (Remains of two temples and Roman antiquities discovered at Bath), and thirteen numbered plates (of which 3 double-page): four are hand-coloured, and seven are stippled. ▬ Volume i, part 3: (3) ff. letterpress, signed (A)–C¹, paginated (1)–6; plus engraved part-title (Figures of mosaic pavements discovered near Frampton in Dorsetshire), and seven numbered plates (of which 1 double-page): all in fine hand-colouring. ▬ Volume i, part 4: (2) ff. letterpress, unsigned (Description of the Plates), paginated (1)–4; plus part-title within circular frame (Roman antiquities discovered in Kent, Cheshire, Durham, Lancashire, Cumberland, Somersetshire, Northamptonshire, and Wiltshire), and ten numbered plates (of which 1 double-page): two printed in sepia, three plain, one stippled, and four in fine hand-colouring.

Volume ii, part 1: entirely engraved: frontispiece (Reliquiae Britannico Romanae iii. [i.e. ‘ii’; the third ‘i’ was meant to be painted out by hand when the plates were coloured]), engraved volume title (Reliquiae Britannico Romanae. Containing figures of Roman Antiquities discovered in England. Vol. iii [i.e. ii, see below]. London mdcccxvii.), engraved Contents of Vol. ii, engraved part-title (Roman Antiquities, discovered in the county of Gloucester), engraved List of plates (on two leaves) and thirty-three numbered aquatint plates (of which 3 double-page and 4 folding): twenty-nine in fine hand-colouring, two plain and two stippled. ▬ Volume ii, part 2: entirely engraved: part-title with list of plates (Remains of Roman military ensigns discovered near Stony Stratford, Bucks, and Barkway, Herts.), and nine aquatint plates numbered xxxiv–xlii (of which 1 double-page): all in fine hand colouring.

Volume iii: entirely engraved: frontispiece (Reliquiae Britannico Romanae iii.), engraved volume title (Reliquiae Britannico Romanae. Containing figures of Roman Antiquities discovered in England. Vol. iii. London mdcccxvii), engraved part-title (Remains of a Roman Villa discovered at Bignor in Sussex), engraved List of plates (on two leaves), and thirty-two numbered plates (of which 16 double-page and 4 folding): all in fine hand-colouring.

In magnificent state of preservation.

bound in russia leather, covers panelled in blind and gilt; spine decorated in gilt and lettered in two compartments; gilt turn-ins; gilt edges; by Philipp Selenka, with his engraved ticket printed on white paper Gebunden bei Ph. Selenka in Wiesbaden.

This sumptuous publication, representing nearly twenty-five years of work, illus­trates mosaics found on numerous sites excavated by the author, a pioneer of field archaeology and also illustration, far ahead of his time in both discernment and technique.¹ Although Roman mosaics had been encountered in England previously, notably by Sir Christopher Wren during his reconstruction of London following the Great Fire of 1666, systematic excava­tion was unknown, and few pavements had been drawn in situ and transcribed into engrav­ings. Lysons’ scholarly publications ushered in a period of great interest in exposing mosaics, and the numbers of known examples multiplied rapidly. Since many mosaics reproduced by Lysons were later damaged by ploughing and gravedigging, in some cases wholly destroyed, his prints have acquired permanent value.

Born of a prominent Gloucestershire family, Samuel Lysons had arrived in London in October 1784 to study law, but soon found other uses for his time. An artist of some skill, he began to exhibit architectural drawings at the Royal Academy in 1785,² and (with Sir Thomas Lawrence) to experiment with etching.³ Lysons was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in November 1786 and in May 1789 read his first paper, ‘An account of some Roman Antiquities discovered at Comb end farm, near Cirencester, Gloucestershire’.

In 1793 his attention was drawn to the large fourth-century Roman villa at Woodchester, Gloucestershire, parts of which had already been explored and pavements exposed. Over three years, Lysons surveyed the villa, uncovering for the first time the entire ‘Great Pave­ment’, and in 1796 he published a series of forty meticulous plates, some of which are records of the mosaics as surviving, others reconstructions attempting to show the basic schemes.⁴ Since Lysons’ day, the pavement has rarely been uncovered, only one (limited) excavation has taken place (1973), and ‘Lysons is still the main source of knowledge of the villa’.⁵

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‘Winter’ from a late third or early fourth century mosaic at Bignor, Sussex, exposed by Lysons in 1811–1819 (Neal & Cosh 396.6). Aquatint by H. Weddell after a drawing by Charles Alfred Stothard, published 1 July 1817 (vol. iii, pl. xxii)

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No sooner were the excavations at Woodchester completed than Lysons began others at Frampton in Dorset⁶ and Horkstow in South Humberside.⁷ The latter site engaged his full attention, when a rival, William Fowler, published in October 1799 engravings of the newly-discovered Providentia pavement. Lysons’ survey of the site, Figures of Mosaic Pavements discovered at Horkstow in Lincolnshire, on seven plates, appeared in 1801.⁸ An ‘Advertisement’ included in the original issue of the book (dated Inner Temple, 1 June 1801), identifies it as ‘the beginning of a Work, in which it is proposed to exhibit figures of the most remarkable Roman Antiquities discovered in Great Britain, under the title of Reliquiæ Romanæ, to be published in separate parts, four of which will make a volume. With the fourth part will be given a general title-page and table of contents’.⁹

The second part, Remains of two Temples and other Roman Antiquities discovered at Bath, documented on twelve plates, drawn by Robert Smirke junior and engraved by William Daniell, duly appeared in 1802 (plate publication lines are dated between 1 February and 1 December 1802);¹⁰ the third part, Figures of Mosaic pavements discovered near Frampton in Dorsetshire, recorded on seven plates, drawn by Lysons and engraved by J. Warren, was published in 1808;¹¹ and the fourth part, Roman antiquities discovered in Kent, Cheshire, Durham, Lancashire, Cumberland, Somersetshire, Northamptonshire, and Wiltshire, shown on ten plates, followed after a longer interval, in 1813 (plate publication lines are dated between 1 May and 1 November 1813).

In 1813 the first volume of ‘Reliquiae Britannico-Romanae’ was issued in accord with the scheme Lysons had projected twelve years before. The plates of its four parts (Horkstow, Bath, Frampton, Roman antiquities discovered in Kent) were reissued behind a new letter­press title-page: ‘Reliquiae Britannico-Romanae, containing figures of Roman Antiquities discovered in various parts of England… 1813’. Two new, engraved plates were placed along the preliminaries: a frontispiece lettered ‘Reliquiae Britannico Romanae. i.’; and a dedication plate to George Prince Regent. At the same time, or perhaps slightly later, a thirteenth plate was added to Bath, recording antiquities discovered there in 1803 and 1809.¹² Volume i of ‘Reliquiae Britannico-Romanae’ was sold for £12 12s, in boards; individual parts remained available, priced £3 3s, £3 13s 6d, £3 3s, £2 12s 6d.¹³

Lysons was working meanwhile on Roman Antiquities, discovered in the County of Gloucester, documenting old finds and sites exposed by others, as well as his own excava­tions, most conducted not far from Hempsted Court, the Lysons family home, at Comb End Farm (Colesbourne), Rodmarton, Woodchester, Withington, Kingsholm, Lidney Park, and Cirencester.¹⁴ Intended as Volume ii of ‘Reliquiae Britannico-Romanae’, it was produced in four parts, with Roman Antiquities occupying the first three, and Remains of Roman Military Ensigns discovered near Stony Stratford, Bucks, and Barkway, Herts. the final part.¹⁵ Sixteen plates were finished by July 1816;¹⁶ thereafter, the work slowly grew to contain forty-two aquatints (the latest plate publication lines are dated 1 February 1818). To circumvent the recent Copyright Act (54 Geo. iii, c.156), which required deposition in various libraries of eleven copies of any work containing letterpress – an expense Lysons was unwilling to suffer – no printed title-page or descriptive text was included. Instead, an engraved title was supplied: ‘Reliquiae Britannico-Romanae. Containing Figures of Roman Antiquities Discovered in England. Vol. – iii. London mdcccxvii’. The lettering ‘Vol. – iii’ was no error: Lysons intended to use the same plate for both the second and third vol­umes of his ‘Reliquiae Britannico-Romanae’, merely painting out the third ‘i’ when it was coloured (this was overlooked in the present copy, and also in the copy in the Getty Research Institute).¹⁷ The etched frontispiece used in the first volume was repeated.

In July 1811 an early fourth-century Roman villa with well-preserved mosaics was discov­ered at Bignor, near Petworth, Sussex.¹⁸ Between this date and Lysons’ death in June 1819, excavation proceeded intermittently, with Richard and Robert Smirke, and Charles Arthur Stothard, helping Lysons to draw the remains. The entire third volume of ‘Reliquiae Britannico-Romanae’ was devoted to Remains of a Roman villa discovered at Bignor in Sussex. Lysons organised the work in four parts, of which the first two (fourteen plates altogether) were completed by 1815,¹⁹ and the last in 1819 (plate publication lines are dated between 1 January 1814 and 1 June 1819).

Again, to avoid the expense imposed by the Copyright Act, no letterpress accompanied the plates. Instead, several unpublished papers which Lysons had read before the Society of Antiquaries, three on discoveries in Gloucestershire (delivered 5 and 12 May 1808, 11 February 1813), and two on Bignor villa (17 June 1813, 9 March 1815), were printed in the Society’s Archaeologia, in 1817. Thomas Bensley, the printer of the ‘Reliquiae Britannico-Romanae’, offprinted these on a suitable paper, and purchasers were invited to insert them in their volumes.²⁰

The publication history of Lysons’ books of Roman antiquities vexes all cataloguers and may be incapable of reconstruction. On the evidence reviewed by the writer, it seems that the plates of the three earliest works (Woodchester, Horkstow, Bath) were casually restruck as additional copies were required. The British Architectural Library’s copy of Woodchester, for example, is printed on a single paper stock dated 1794, and probably is representative of the first issue.²¹ Abbey’s copy of Woodchester is printed on a mixture of papers, some plates date-watermarked 1794, others 1810.²² In one of the British Library’s copies of the ‘Reliquiae Britannico-Romanae’ (74/743 f.13) the plates of Horkstow are printed on paper watermarked 1794, Bath is printed on papers watermarked 1794 or 1801, and Frampton on a paper watermarked 1805. In another British Library copy (137.h.2–4), some of the plates in Horkstow are date-watermarked 1794, however the etched sub-title is on a paper watermarked 1816; in that copy Bath is printed on papers dated 1801 and 1809.

Lysons’ practice of organising each volume of ‘Reliquiae Britannico-Romanae’ in four parts allowed him to commence sales before the whole volume was completed. Thus, Volume ii, part one only (sixteen plates of Roman Antiquities, discovered in the County of Gloucester), was offered by Cadell and Davies in 1816 (priced £3 3s), with prospective purchasers reassured: ‘…Three more Parts of Vol. ii. … are in great forwardness’. Similarly, Volume iii, parts one and two only (each comprising seven plates of Remains of a Roman villa discovered at Bignor in Sussex), were advertised in 1816 (each priced £3 3s), and purchasers advised ‘…two more [parts] of Vol. iii., which are in great forwardness, will complete this Work’.²³

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A severe illness suffered by Lysons in 1814, and the death of his draughtsman Richard Smirke the following year, slowed progress on the third volume. Although fourteen of its thirty-two plates were distributed in 1815, the principal draughtsman C.A. Stothard and his printmakers worked haltingly on the remainder. On 22 January 1819 Lysons showed to Robert Smirke and Joseph Farington ‘His Bognor [sic] Roman Antiquities nearly comp[le]ted’.²⁴ Four plates were copyrighted in May and June 1819, and it seems that only the general plan remained unfinished when Lysons died, on 30 June 1819.²⁵

Letters of condolence sent to Daniel Lysons by his brother’s friends offer their help in fin­ishing the third volume. Daniel Lysons replied to John Hawkins, on whose estate the mosaics had been found, stating his immediate intentions:

Mean time, I shall [be] much employed in getting out my poor Brother’s Reliquiae Romanae. He was making a push to get 20 copies of the complete work ready intending afterwards by degrees to get ready others according to the demand. My object now will be to make up a certain number of the whole work including the Woodchester & and offer it for sale to Payne or some other bookseller. The number can not exceed 75—the plates of the Woodchester having been destroyed, & I shall have a better chance perhaps of disposing of the whole than if I attempted a larger number. My meaning is to destroy the plates. It occupied me some days to ascertain the stock of each plate & I was sorry to find but small numbers of some—it will be attended with considerable expense there­fore to make up the 75 copies & I can scarcely expect to dispose of them in such a manner as to get back anything like the large sums which my brother expended. I must make up a greater number of Bignor to enable those who have the former volumes already to complete their sets—your set shall not be forgotten. It is my intention to present a copy of the works pursuant to my brothers intention to the Prince Regent & for that purpose I think of making a tour to Brighton the beginning of October…²⁶

The set was presented by Daniel Lysons to the Prince Regent in mid-November 1819.²⁷ If Daniel Lysons fulfilled his other intentions, which is likely, a large number of sets were made-up in 1819–1820 by restriking selective plates, and the matrices afterwards cancelled. The sets were entrusted to Cadell, who appended copies of Woodchester, and offered four-volume sets, priced £48 6s.²⁸

These circumstances help to explain the variations between copies. Although most copies of ‘Reliquiae Britannico-Romanae’ contain the requisite number of plates of antiquities (111, disposed 37, 42, 32 in three volumes),²⁹ they deviate in the number of attendant leaves, both engraved and letterpress. The original issues of Horstow and Bath, for example, each contained a single-folio letterpress ‘Advertisement’; they were replaced in the first volume of the ‘Reliquiae Britannico-Romanae’ by a single-leaf ‘Advertisement’. Similarly, after 1814 engraved lists of plates later were substituted for original letterpress lists of plates. Even among copies of the three-volume ‘Reliquiae’ variations exist: in the present set, and in the set in the Getty Research Institute, the eight leaves of descriptive text (reprinted from Archaeologia) are not present; in the British Library copies, they are occur only in the Royal Library copy (shelfmark 137 h.2–4). No letterpress ‘List of Plates’ in Frampton or Roman antiquities discovered in Kent is found in our copy; the List for Kent only is present in the Getty copy; both lists appear in the Royal Library copy.

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Our copy is in a superbly-preserved binding by Philipp Selenka (1803–1850) of Wiesbaden, brother of Johann Jacob Selenka (1801–1871), Hofbuchbinder in Braunschweig.³⁰

further references Leopoldo Cicognara, Catalogo ragionato dei libri d’arte e d’antichità posse­duti dal conte Cicognara (Pisa 1821), p.244 no. 4032; Fabia Borroni, ‘Il Cicognara’: bibliografia dell’archeologia classica e dell’arte italiana (Florence 1954–1967), nos. 4363 (Bath), 4417 (Bignor), 5664 (Frampton), 6014 (Horkstow)