A series of sketches, including the principal objects in the great historical picture of the siege of Acre,

8vo, pp. 4, 8 etched plates, with 4 explanatory printed leaves, offsetting from the etchings, a few minor spots; in recent marbled wrapper.

This rare booklet was issued to accompany the great panorama of the battle of Accra on display in the Lyceum painted by the 19 year old Robert Ker Porter (1777-1842), brother of two novelist sisters. Benjamin West had been so impressed by the 13 year old Porter, determined to become a military painter 'by the vigour and spirit of some of his sketches that he procured his admission as a Royal Academy student at Somerset House. He entered the Royal Academy Schools on 18 February 1791' (^gOxford DNB^g). Later in life Porter had the most varied career as a diplomat and traveler in Russia, Asia and Central America.

The inventor of panoramas, Robert Barker, had taken out a patent which was to expire in 1801. Other artists, such as Porter, geared up already before that date to get into the lucrative market; therefore they avoided the word ^gPanorama^g in the titles. The bibliophile Thomas Dibdin described the impact such panoramas had on the public in their early days. He recollects his visit of Porter's first panorama, ^gTaking of Seringpatam^g. 'The learned where amazed, and the unlearned were enraptured ... The public poured in by hundreds and thousands for even a transient gaze - for such a sight was altogether as marvellous as it was novel. You carried it home, and did nothing but think of it, talk of it, and dream of it. And all this by a young man of NINETEEN!' (^gReminiscences of a literary Life^g volume I, pp. 146-148).