Portraits of John and Abigail Adams

Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967. Presumed First Edition, First printing thus. Hardcover. Very good/Good. xxxvi, [2], 284, [2] pages. Editorial Method and Apparatus. Footnotes. Illustrations. Catalogue. Index. DJ has some wear, tears and soiling and is price clipped. Ink notation on fep. This is part of The Adams Papers series for which L. H. Butterfield was Editor in Chief. This was the first volume in the Series IV Portraits. The 116 illustrations of this handsome and fascinating book include all known life portraits, busts, and silhouettes of John and Abigail Adams, plus many important replicas, copies, and engravings. In the years between his thirtieth birthday and his ninety-first, John Adams sat for his portrait at least thirty times. The book contains a particularly useful catalogue listing 219 items, all the known paintings of John and Abigail Adams, with information about the artist, the size of the painting, the date if possible, the inscription if any, and the owner if known. Andrew Oliver was an American historian and lawyer who had served as first vice president and an honorary trustee of the New York Historical Society. He was the author of ''The Portraits of John and Abigail Adams'' and ''The Portrait of John Marshall'' and edited the diaries of Samuel Curwen, an 18th-century English lawyer. Mr. Oliver, was a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He was a managing partner of Alexander & Green and specialized in corporate, trust and estate law. Mr. Oliver was a former president of the Essex Institute in Salem, Mass.; former secretary of the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston; a member of the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Mass., and a commissioner of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington.