Collection of Etruscan, Greek, and Roman Antiquities,

First edition of this luxurious and richly illustrated publication, of which only 100 complete sets were produced.

The collection was assembled by Hamilton after his appointment to the court of Naples in 1764. Pierre François Hugues, an authority on ancient art, had introduced Hamilton to the Porcinari family, the owners of a large collection of ancient classical vases which Hamilton bought and enlarged, and then sold to the British Museum in 1772. Before their shipment of England, all the objects were listed, drawn and described under the supervision of the brilliant but unscrupulous 'baron' The work was finely illustrated with hand-coloured engraved plates whose 'influence on neo-classical design and taste was to be profound' (Dictionary of Art). One of the explicit aims of the work was to discover the proportions of ancient vases in order to aid in their true reproduction, and indeed its influence on Josiah Wedgewood was significant. With first two volumes issued, publication was then interrupted by Hugues' expulsion from Naples, apparently for debt, and Hamilton had to overcome the difficulty of finding his copper-plates in the hands of creditors. The last two volumes did not appear before 1776. Although Blackmer states that the edition was of 500 copies, it appears that only 100 copies of the two later volumes were issued (cf. I. Jenkins and K. Sloan Vases and Volcanoes, 1996, p. 49), and this, together with the long gap in publication, accounts for the relatively high number of incomplete set