[HOLY LAND]. PORTER (Robert Ker)]. The Siege... - Lot 51 - Ader

[HOLY LAND]. PORTER (Robert Ker)]. The Siege of Acre, or Descriptive Collections relative to the Late Scene of Contest in Syria between the British and Turkish Force, under the Orders of Sir W. Sidney Smith and the Republican French, Commanded by General Buonaparte. Chiefly Intended as a Companion to the Great Historical Picture, Painted by Robert Ker Porter, now exhibiting at the Lyceum, London, Printed by W. Glendinning, 1801 [followed by] [PORTER (Jane)]. Set of engravings and autographs relating to Jane Porter (1776-1850), pasted on interleaved leaves. Printed in-8, 96 pp. + 9 ff. + sales catalogues. Bound in green half calf with corners, spine with five raised bands, traces of gilt lettering (English binding). Size : 220 x 140 mm. Copy full of 21 engravings (mounted on tabs, sometimes pasted one behind the other), autographs (7 letters), a partly handwritten note from the British Consulate General in France : " This is to certify that Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith is now living in Paris... ", dated April 13, 1826 and press clippings. Also contains the following items: Catalogue of a Curious and Valuable Collection of Manuscripts, illuminated Missals, Horae etc. [...] together with some other items. [...] together with some Interesting Autograph Letters including The Very Extensive Correspondence of the Celebrated authoresses Anna Maria and Jane Porter and Sir Robert Ker Porter..., Sotheby's, 19 March 1852 (excerpt from the pages relating to the Porters, pp. 33-39); followed by the complete Catalogue of this same sale. Some autographs were included in the sale. This text accompanied the painting by Sir Robert Ker Porter (1777-1842) of the "Siege at Acre" (1800). Robert Ker Porter was a Scottish painter and orientalist traveller who emigrated to Russia. His two sisters were writers (Jane and Anna Maria Porter). In 1800 he was appointed painter to the Lyceum Theatre and in the same year caused a sensation when his Storming of Seringapatam, a 120-foot (37 m) long panorama, painted, according to his sister Jane, in six weeks, was exhibited. This copy also pays tribute to Jane Porter (1776-1850), who drew on the life and writings of the war hero Sir Sidney Smith (1764-1840) in her groundbreaking historical novel Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803). Porter's high regard for Smith's military and personal merits was not based simply on knowledge gleaned from the popular press, but on his personal knowledge of Smith and his family. See: Devoney Looser, "The Porter Sisters, Women's Writing, and Historical Fiction" in The History of British Women's Writing. Volume 5: 1750-1830, ed. Jacqueline Labbe, London, 2010, pp. 233-253; Devoney Looser, "Another Jane: Jane Porter, Austen's Contemporary" in New Windows on a Woman's World: A Festschrift for Jocelyn Harris, ed. Colin Gibson and Lisa Marr, 2005, vol. 2, pp. 235-48. Provenance: Armorial bookplate of A. Keily and his name in pencil on the title with the notation "Hornsey Aug. 24. 1857" .