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Summary
Author: Simpson, F., jun.
Title: A series of ancient baptismal fonts, chronologically arranged. Drawn by F. Simpson, jun. Engraved by R.Roberts.
Publication: London, Septimus Prowett 1828 (but published in parts 1825-1828).
Price: £165
Reference: 10095
Full Description
Large 8vo. (6) + xxvi + 66 + (18)pp, (40) engraved plates including engraved frontispiece. The plate of the font at Wansford, Northamptonshire, has a not very pleasing mark at its lower outer corner, and there is some intermittent offsetting or spotting elsewhere, but the copy is in respectable condition generally. Mid-nineteenth century quarter morocco, cloth sides. Jill Allibone's copy, with her bookplate.
A rather undervalued volume, providing very carefully drawn illustrations by Francis Simpson (d. 1861) of some forty mediaeval sculptured fonts, mostly from churches in Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire. The geographical distribution arises from the fact that Simpson lived in Stamford, on the Lincolnshire-Northamptonshire border, and he was consequently able to record and draw some previously unpublished examples in little-known local parish churches, just after they had been stripped of eighteenth-century paint or whitewash. The brief descriptions were provided by William Twopenny, but it is clear that Simpson regarded himself as the author. BAL Cat. 3043.