Pompei" [sic] -- A Victorian Souvenir Book of Hand-Colored Engravings of Pompeii's Frescos and Tile Works

Naples, Italy, 1871. Very good. Scattered foxing, extremities rubbed, remains of previous modern adhesive label to front pastedown.. A superb souvenir album created by an English or American tourist c.1871, showing the strong hold the ruins of Pompeii held over the touristic imagination in the Victorian era. From the beginning of the century, no European Grand Tour was complete without a visit to, and a souvenir from, the archaeological site, and the present volume is an excellent example of the kind of souvenirs sought by such well-to-do British and American tourists. The album was presumably bound after the fact, but contains fourteen (14) lithographs and engravings hand-finished in watercolor, gouache, and hand stencil/pochoir, that would have been purchased in or around Pompeii as a tourist souvenir. Each is contained in a thick card mat, embossed in blind ("Pompei" and "L Majolino In Napoli"). They each depict a different design from the ruins of Pompeii, such as the famous "cave canem" ("beware of dog") mosaic at the entrance to Pompeii's House of the Tragic Poet. Other images include Neptune driving his chariot, sea serpents, a cheetah hunting a boar, and complex mosaic designs featuring what would today be referred to as a swastika, but in Ancient Rome referenced lightning bolts and the gods. There is an additional hand-colored print without a mat tipped in to the rear, and an additional hand-colored etching depicting tourists visiting the ruins in the front of the album. Single vol. (12.5" by 10"), sixteen leaves with hand-colored plates bound in contemporary gold-stamped roan.