[ALBUM. by (?PARKER, Mary, Lady Leighton, compiler).

Oblong folio (42 × 28 mm), 76 leaves with circa 50 original drawings and watercolours and c. 61 prints (mainly lithographs and steel engravings, some hand coloured), almost all mounted (just a few loose at front and rear). Marginal creasing, mainly confined to the album leaves, a few of which now fragile towards the gutter. Nineteenth-century straight grained plum half morocco. Spine and corners rather worn, with the upper joint open at head and foot, but all secure.

A large and full album containing accomplished watercolours and a selection of contemporary prints.
The original drawings and watercolours here (together with the more significant prints) display a distinctly romantic sensibility, with mountain and lakeland scenes (and more than a hint of the cult of the sublime) and other rural subjects of cottages and cottagers. Some of the views are obviously of Britain, while others are continental (specifically alpine). The majority are unsigned, though a number are by the same very accomplished amateur hand, with others by less schooled, perhaps juvenile hands. The whole assemblage is typical of the culture of early Victorian album- and scrapbook keeping, where a female compiler (often a mother) brought together contributions from family, friends and visitors, sometimes recording their travels, but including also subjects painted at home or copied or adapted from other sources. In the latter category are found a fine series of flower paintings, together with drawings in pencil and crayon of animals, a female reader, a cottager with a bundle of firewood, and so on. The principal artist, who contributes the largest and best watercolour views may well be identifiable as Mary Leighton, née Parker (1799-1864), a northern British artist whose work is represented in a sequence of albums closely comparable to ours at the Yale Center for British Art (MSS 16). Not only is the range of materials of our album similar in each case (including watercolour contributions from Leighton’s brother, John Parker) but the style of the best watercolours is close to those by Leighton (examples of here work are digitised by the YCBA, notably the watercolour of Lake Maggiore catalogued as B2009.9.68 in the Printed and Drawings collection, together with others in the V&A collection in London). A recent northern provenance for the album further supports that likelihood.
The contents include:
Six fine watercolours of rural scenes (one mountainous, another captioned ‘Cottage. From nature’), several other sepia watercolour views, probably by the same hand. All unsigned.
Pencil drawing, Warwick Castle, signed ?C.W.W. May 29^th, 1821.
Twelve watercolours of flowers and fruit (including sweet peas, auricula, a rose, geranium, fuchsia and two mixed bouquets). Unsigned.
Silhouette portrait (perhaps a self portrait) of the prolific society silhouettist Auguste Édouart (1789-1861), signed, 1831, mounted on an elaborate lithograph background, plus one other silhouette without background, possibly also his work.
Two watercolour miniatures (85 × 115 mm) by John Parker (1798-1860) of mountain views in North Wales: Trevaen (Tryfan) and Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), signed, dated 1824 and with manuscript descriptions on versos.
A circular miniature (diameter 85 mm) in sepia wash of a woodland grotto scene, mounted on a bifolium with manuscript caption in German dated 1818 signed Rösel, the miniature attributable to Johann Gottlob Samuel Rösel (1768-1843).
Four large alpine engravings/lithographs (Montblanc, Hospice de Grimsel, Hospice du St Bernard, Chamounix), elaborately hand-coloured.
Numerous usually smaller pencil or crayon drawings, including rural or cottage scenes, animals (a pig and a donkey), marine scenes, children at play, a girl reading etc. In several hands of different competence.
Larger prints include: ‘The Late King’ (Hullmandel, after 1830); ‘Oaklands near Newnham, Gloucestershire’ (Haghe, ?c. 1830s); ‘Rev. Richard Raikes’ [founder of the Sunday School movement] (Hullmandel, n.d.); ‘The Thames Tunnel’ [Harding/Dixie, hand-coloured lithograph, c. 1835]; ‘L’Ingrat’ (Hullmandel, after 1832); ‘Kossynier : Sensenträger’ (Warsaw, c. 1830); ‘Ilfracombe, from Lantern Hill’ (Day & Haghe, c. 1830). There also several smaller lithographs including series of seaside views in Devon (Ilfracombe) and East Kent (Ramsgate and evirons, some locally printed.
Four small continental devotional prints, two with moveable flaps, one metallic.
(From the YCBA catalogue record): Mary Leighton, née Parker, 1799-1864 was the third child of Thomas Netherton Parker (1771-1848) and his wife, Sarah. Her parents must have encouraged their children's creative pursuits, as Mary and her elder brother John both became accomplished amateur artists. Their family was close friends of the Ladies of Llangollen, Eleanor Charlotte Barker (1739-1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755-1832), two upper-class Irish women who fled their families and established a home together in North Wales, at Plas Newydd, only fifteen miles from the Parker family estate, Sweeney Hall. Correspondence between Sarah Parker and Sarah Ponsonby, currently in the Denbighshire Record Office archives, reveals that Mary occasionally sent the ladies her drawings, many of which record the grounds of Plas Newydd and the surrounding countryside. The subjects of Mary's drawings also include prominent Grand Tour sites, satirical treatments of contemporary fashions, and thoughtful portraits of friends and family. Notably, the only portrait from life of the Ladies of Llangollen is by Mary's hand. Mary remained an active amateur artist following her 1832 marriage to Baldwin Leighton, 7th Baronet (1805-1871), of Loton Hall. Together they had six children, who Mary actively encouraged in drawing and painting.