[MARY, Queen of Scots (1542-1587)] – SKELTON, John. Mary Stuart. London & Paris: Goupil & Co., 1898.

Cosway binding with two extremely fine three-quarter length portrait miniatures: of Queen Mary of Scots and of Queen Elizabeth I. The portrait of Queen Mary is after a miniature by Janet Clouet, in the Queen’s Collection at Windsor. The portrait of Queen Elizabeth is after a painting by Zucchero, depicting her as the personification of Wisdom. The book itself is a limited edition, one of 500 copies on fine paper. The miniatures were almost certainly painted by C.B. Currie, and are among her finest work. Pristine copy.

Folio (319 x 230mm). Color frontispiece, other illustrations and facsimiles. Dark green crushed levant morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe for J.W. Robinson Company, inlaid and gilt-decorated with ornamental borders incorporating royal arms and emblems of Scotland, brown levant doublures, also inlaid and gilt-decorated, moiré silk endleaves, both doublures with glazed portrait miniatures on ivory within recessed panels framed with red morocco gilt inner borders and gilt morocco floral outer borders, all edges gilt and gauffred, stamp-signed by the binder on lower turn-in. Full morocco gilt velvet-lined case. Provenance: Sotheby’s New York, 18 June 1992, lot 128.