3 x 5 inches, 11 x 15 cms. Original padded pink suede, lettered in silver. 19 leaves of grey card, with a roundel photographic portrait laid down, and 17 tipped-in photographic plates with printed titles below. All edges silver, silk marker.
In lovely condition.
On December 18th 1910 the New York Times reported that "Alfred G. Vanderbilt, who won so many honors at the first International Horse Show in England last year, has arranged to carry on a coaching enterprise between London and Brighton next Spring, running the Venture from May 1 until June 15 as a public coach".
For this purpose Vanderbilt had previously shipped a team of horses and his coach "Venture" over to the UK. His coach and four attracted crowds of onlookers during its 60-mile trips from London to Brighton.
This work, believed to have been produced in small numbers for passengers on the coach, is a magnificent memento in virtually pristine condition of Vanderbilt's recreation in 1910 of the glamour of this mode of transport through the Surrey and Sussex countryside.
Alfred G. Vanderbilt, one of the wealthiest men in the U.S.A., was a keen sportsman with a love of coaching and its rich history. Sadly, he died in 1915, aged just 38, on the British trans-Atlantic liner "Lusitania" when the vessel was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine.
|
