QUEENS by Synge, J.M. and Harry Clarke - 1986

Mountrath, County Laois, Ireland: The Dolmen Press Limited, 1986. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine. Nine color plates. First edition thus. In 1917, the Irish artist Harry Clarke was commissioned by the Right Honourable Laurence Ambrose Waldron PC to make a series of miniature stained glass panels to illustrate J.M. Synge's poem Queens, to be set as a frieze in his library. The nine panels were completed in September 1917 and, as Thomas Bodkin wrote of them, "they have no exact precedent in the history of stained glass. They are extraordinarily accomplished technically especially in view of the small area of glass in each panel, and are iconographically intriguing." Each panel is approximately 300 millimetres high and 180 millimetres wide, the reproductions in this book being something over half linear scale. Prospectus laid in. Original blue cloth binding, with gilt stamping. A fine copy.