The Roxburghe Club

THE LUMLEY INVENTORY. ART COLLECTING AND LINEAGE IN THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. EDITED BY MARK EVANS. THE ROXBURGHE CLUB 2010.

Sale Notes

Price £220.

Sale Vendor

Maggs

Notes

Facsimile and Commentary on the Manuscript in the Possession of the Earl of Scarbrough.
Folio. 168pp + colour facsimile and 80 comparative illustrations. Bound in red buckram.

The Lumley Inventory and Pedigree is the most important surviving document of Elizabethan visual culture. The manuscript is owned by the Earls of Scarbrough and has long been on deposit at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was compiled around 1590 for John, Baron Lumley (c.1533-1609), a pivotal figure between the Elizabethans with their enthusiasm for architecture and genealogy, and the Jacobeans with their love of books and artists. A Roman Catholic, Lord Lumley married the daughter of the 12th Earl of Arundel, and divided his time between his ancestral seat at Lumley Castle in County Durham and Nonsuch Palace in Surrey. Lacking an heir and excluded from a political role, Lumley directed his considerable energies into antiquarian pursuits, memorials, and the collecting activities that are spectacularly recorded in his Inventory.

As Sir Roy Strong writes in the Foreword, this publication fills 'a major lacuna in Elizabethan studies and one that could only satisfactorily be remedied by a team of scholars knowledgeable not only about painting but also genealogy, sculpture, furniture, interior decoration, heraldry, gardens and architecture'. Mark Evans, Senior Curator of Paintings at the V&A, heads a team of fifteen leading scholars who have examined all aspects of this fascinating manuscript.

The first part comprises an account of the contents of Lumley Castle, copies of verses and inscriptions displayed there, transcripts of deeds and other records related to the Lumleys, and four richly illuminated genealogical trees. It was Lord Lumley's fascination with pedigrees and portraits that elicited King James's famous quip, 'I didna ken Adam's ither name was Lumley'.

The second part includes a series of drawings in ink, wash and watercolour of fountains and other garden ornaments at Nonsuch, marble-topped tables, the funerary monuments of Lumley and his wives at the nearby parish church in Cheam, and views of Lumley Castle. The Inventiry takes its name from its list of Lumley's collection of almost three hundred paintings, then one of the largest in existence, many of which are attributed to named artists and more than fifty of which are identifiable today, making it one of the most important surviving documentary sources for Tudor art and collecting.

This edition includes the first complete, full-scale colour facsimile of the text and decorated pages of the manuscript, together with twelve essays by fifteen leading authorities on Elizabethan art, patronage, collecting, heraldry, furniture and gardwen decoration, with more than eighty comparative illustrations, many in colour. It is more than ninety years since a transcript of the inventory alone was published by the Walpole Society, and this long-anticipated facsimile and in-depth scholarly appreciation is a major contribution to Renaissance studies.

The large format of the publication is 44 x 30 cm. The book comprises 168 pages printed to the highest standard and bound in full buckram. This edition is privately printed for the Roxburghe Club, which has agreed to make 250 copies available for sale from Maggs Bros.