N. CONDY - Cothele, on the Banks of the Tamar. ca 1840. 17 color lithographed plates .

CONDY Nicholas - Cothele, on the Banks of the Tamar, the Ancient Seat of the Rt. Honble the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe. With a descriptive account, written expressly for the work by the Revd. F[rancis] V[yvyan] J[ago] Arundell. London [ca 1840]. Published by the Author. Folio, pp. 35, lithographed frontispiece 1, dedication card 1, plan 1, plates 16. psk. period binding.
Abrasions of the spine, minor staining and local yellowing of the pages, slight folding of the edges of several pages. Piece stitched, pages loose. Extremely impressive folio imperiale album showing the medieval Tudor residence of Cothele in Cornwall, built in the mid-15th century by the Edgcumbe family on the River Tamar. On the front cover is a gilt Edgcumbbe coat of arms with the motto "Au plaisir fort de Dieu." The album opens with a colorful frontispiece (colored lithograph) depicting a falconer in front of the entrance to the castle. The next sheet contains a calligraphic dedication to Ernest Augustus Edgcumb, to whom Nicholas Condy (1793-1857), the illustrator, dedicated his work. Topographical orientation during reading is facilitated by a schematic plan of the mansion with a description of each room. The rest of the album is taken up with the history of the Cothele and a description of its rooms. The text was printed on thin fine paper, the engravings were lithographed and colored on sheets of stiff paper. Next to each engraving is an explanatory chapter. The book contains, in order, the charts: The Entrance, The Quadrangle, The Hall, The Hall, Dining Room, Ante-Room, The Chapel, Chapel in the Wood, The White Room, The Red Room, The Best Bed Room, King Charles Room, The Western Tower, The Drawing Room, The Kitchen. There is a description of "Queen Anne's Room" on p. 31, but the piece does not have an engraving showing this interior. We have not been able to find out whether this engraving was in the album, while catalog descriptions of many pieces note its absence, and those that do not mention the absence give the number of plates as here (16).
The Cothele residence survives today in almost unaltered condition, and is one of the best-preserved Tudor-era buildings in Britain.