Du Pasquier, Claudius Francis, FRCS (1811-1897)
Collection of sketchbooks and an illustrated journal of tours in the Alps
£378
Auction: 19 September 2024 from 10:00 BST
Description
3 sketchbooks, all oblong 8vo in contemporary quarter or half roan: 1) 17.5 x 26cm, approx. 35 pencil sketches (many heightened in white bodycolour), depicting Scottish scenery (Loch Earn, Comrie, Loch Tay, Killin, and other Scottish and English views, leaves loose, pencilled attribution ‘Sketches by Claudius F. Du Pasquier, 62 Pall Mall’ to front pastedown; 2) 12 x 21cm, containing approx. 25 pencil sketches, depicting Hastings, Netley Abbey, Warwick Castle, Carisbrooke Castle, Eteigne (Tyrol) and other alpine scenes, one leaf loose, ownership inscription ‘C Du Pasquier’; 3) 12.5 x 17.5cm, approx. 25 pencil sketches (one coloured in gouache, several heightened with white bodycolour), depicting alpine scenery (mountains, lakes, chalets, townscapes), Normandy architecture, Lismore Castle, ownership inscription 'C F Du Pasquier, 62 Pall Mall).
Journal: 8vo, contemporary maroon morocco, approx. 50 leaves, containing accounts of 2 separate tours, the second with title ‘Notes of a Tour to Switzerland and the Italian Lakes in the Autumn of 1850', presumably by Claudius Du Pasquier (internal evidence including note of a return to Pall Mall), 4 mounted grisaille watercolour sketches, laid-in plant matter, pasted-in newspaper cuttings (including obituaries of Du Pasquier) and genealogical annotations to rear, further laid-in material including a photographic carte-de-visite of Claudius Du Pasquier
Footnote
Claudius Francis Du Pasquier (1811-1897), born in London to a Swiss father and English mother, practised as an apothecary at 62 Pall Mall, serving successively as personal apothecary to Prince Albert, surgeon-apothecary to Queen Victoria, and surgeon-apothecary to Edward VII as Prince of Wales before retiring to Norwood. His obituary in the British Medical Journal noted that ‘Du Pasquier was very skilful with his fingers, and fond of working with the microscope. In his early years he was a great collector of butterflies and ferns. Later, in this years of retirement, he became devoted to his garden and beds of rose trees’ (BMJ 4 September 1897).