The bright lights of film crews and photographers descended on the
Hidden away in one of the many boxes of books they have been cataloguing, the volunteers stumbled upon an extremely rare find – a complete copy of David Robert’s The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia. Published in 1842 this amazing book contains the first pictures of
After research by the volunteers, curator Andrew Morrison and expert Peter Freshwater the three bound volumes were found to be one of only 400 first editions ever made, with other examples owned by Queen Victoria and the Tsar of Russia. What makes the complete books even rarer is many of the 400 were taken apart so the pictures can be sold separately.
To find the books so close to Christmas was a great press story and TV, radio, national and regional newspapers and magazines all turned up to take pictures of the hand coloured lithographs in the books. As one of the reports said, museums don’t get Christmas presents better than this!
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