KAY, John (1742-1826, illustrator). A Series of Original Portraits and Caricature Etchings, Edinburgh, 1837, 2 volumes, 4to, 358 etched portraits, later red morocco gilt. FIRST EDITION. With 2 other books. (4)

KAY, John (1742-1826, illustrator).  A Series of Original Portraits and Caricature Etchings ... With Biographical Sketches and Illustrative Anecdotes. Edinburgh: Hugh Paton, Carver and Gilder, 1837. 2 volumes, 4to (262 x 200mm). Printer's device on titles, 358 etched plates by John Kay, one folding (occasional light spotting, marginal stain to one plate). Attractively bound in 19th-century red morocco gilt, gilt edges (extremities lightly rubbed). FIRST EDITION, published posthumously. Each biographical sketch is complete with an etching, with a further 29 additional etchings at the end of the second volume. The work therefore collates complete, although plate counts vary for other sets. With 2 other books of related interest, namely the same artist's A Series of Original Portraits and Caricature Etchings ... New Edition. Vol. II. Containing Plates CLXXI. to CCCXXIX, and Appendix CCCXXX. to CCCLXI (Edinburgh, 1877, vol. II only (of 2), 4to (275 x 220mm), etched plates, contemporary roan-backed boards) and Benjamin W. Crombie's Modern Athenians. A Series of Original Portraits of Memorable Citizens of Edinburgh ... 1837 to 1847 (Edinburgh, 1882, frontispiece and 48 hand-coloured plates, contemporary roan-backed boards, LIMITED TO 1,040 COPIES, signed by the publisher). The lot sold as a collection of plates, not subject to return. Provenance: from the Collection of the late Professor Bernard Nevill (1930-2019). Bernard Nevill was well-known as a textile designer and educator. In the 1950s he worked for a time at Vogue where he befriended the fashion designer Madeleine Vionnet and the artist Sonia Delaunay (see lot 231). From 1957 to 1960 he was a lecturer at the Central School of Art and Design and from 1959 to 1974 he taught at the Royal College of Art and St Martin's School of Art. He went on to work as a design consultant, then director, for Liberty and Co. For many years he lived at West House in Chelsea, designed by Philip Webb in 1868, and it was here that the famous scene in Uncle Monty's drawing room from the cult film Withnail and I (1987) was filmed. Please note that the proceeds from this and the following 24 lots, which are all from the Collection of the late Professor Bernard Nevill, will be donated to charity, in his memory. (4)