A General History of Painting amongst the Ancients

Manuscript volume of 'An Outline of a General History of Painting amongst the Ancients' written by Wornum over two years while on his European travels. It is dated Rome, 1838. A note added in the inside front cover states that: "Strange enough, in the beginning of the year 1838, when engaged on the following sketch at Rome Scott (now dead) asked me one evening at the Caffe Bon Gout when I meant to publish My History of Painting, for it was well known among the English artists at Rome that I was engaged upon such a work - I answered 15 years time, th.- said Scott that's six years later than necessary, for Horace says a man should keep a work only nine years - as it happened, exactly nine years after the conversation I published my Epochs of Painting". In the Preface he states that his aim is for "the Reader to form a tolerable idea of the rise, progress and decline of Painting amongst the Ancients from the very earliest times until the decline of the Roman Empire".