The Lives of The Painters

John Canaday — First Edition, Complete Four-Volume Set with Original Slipcase

W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1969. First Edition.

A handsome complete first-edition set of John Canaday's The Lives of the Painters, an ambitious survey of Western painting from the late Gothic period through Post-Impressionism. Canaday, longtime art critic for The New York Times, combines biography, criticism, and art history in an accessible account of the artists and movements that shaped Western painting.

The four-volume set comprises:

• Volume I: Late Gothic to High Renaissance

• Volume II: Baroque

• Volume III: Neoclassic to Post-Impressionist

• Volume IV: Plates and Index

Bound uniformly in green cloth with decorative gilt spine ornamentation and lettering. The set is housed in its original illustrated publisher's slipcase, which retains the original price panel advertising the introductory 1969 price of $29.95 and subsequent price of $40.00.

Condition: Very Good+ overall. The volumes are clean and attractive with sound bindings and well-preserved gilt decoration. Some mild, uneven fading and normal signs of age are visible to the cloth. The original illustrated slipcase remains solid and presentable, with edge and corner wear, rubbing, and some wrinkling/compression consistent with age and use. Please see photographs for the condition of this set and its original case.