The Life and Work of Thomas Baines

Oblong 4to; original green boards, lettered in gilt on spine, and with gilt device to upper cover; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. 184, incl. index; sumptuously illustrated with full-colour reproductions of the artist's work; maps. Lower panel of dustwrapper ever so slightly rubbed. Near-fine condition. 

" 'The desire of travel once roused within my heart was not so easily to be lulled to rest'.  Born in 1820 in King's Lynn, Baines left England at the age of 21.  He travelled extensively in Africa and Australia before he died in Durban in 1875.  The name of Thomas Baines is well known today, but this is the first comprehensive evaluation of his life and work.  His journals meticulously record his encounters with the people and landscapes of South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.  From the perspective of the late twentieth century, Baines emerges as a talented and interesting Victorian artist conditioned by his British heritage, but influenced by the spacious African continent.  His work is the confluence of his cultural values and the way he translated his experiences into visual language.  This fresh interpretation provides a deeper understanding of the man and his art."