Sédille, Paul
First and only edition of this well-written study of British architecture by the French architect Paul Sédille (1836-1900), whose Anglophile sentiments are shown by the fact that he dedicates the book to Sir Frederick Leighton (Lord Leighton), the painter, and by his choice of an image by Alfred Stevens for the design on its front wrapper. He provides an historical introduction, but much of his book is rightly devoted to recent buildings by such architects as Alfred Waterhouse, T.G.Jackson and Norman Shaw, and he poses such necessary questions as ?Qu?est-ce donc que le style Queen Anne ?? The only previous copy of this title that we have had through our hands was that listed by us in our Cat 27, item 104, in 1997. 4to. (8) + 131 + (3) pp, many woodcut text ills. Publisher?s detachable pictorial wrappers (over plain wrappers), the pictorial wrappers rather soiled and dusty (front cover is from a design by Alfred Stevens). Author?s presentation inscription in blue crayon on half-title leaf to ?mon eminent confrère E.Vaudremer? (Emile Vaudremer (1829-1914), winner of the Grand Prix de Rome in 1854, official architect to the city of Paris, and head of an atelier at the Ecole des Beaux Arts). The book is clean and fresh internally.
Aikin, Edmund, Busby, C.A., & others) Weale, John (ed)
A scarce and curious compilation, put together by the architectural bookseller and publisher John Weale as a means of putting to commercial use the surviving copper plates of two architectural pattern books originally published by the Taylor firm as far back as 1808. The first thirty-one plates are those of the architect Edmund Aikin?s Designs for Villas and other Rural Buildings, a volume of designs for villas with Greek Revival features, dedicated by Aikin to Thomas Hope and visually reminiscent of similar pattern books by Joseph Gandy published in 1805-6, while the next twenty-four plates are those of the architect C.A. Busby?s Series of Designs for Villas and Country Houses, in which the designs are more elegant and conventionally classical. As Aikin had died as early as 1820, and Busby?s career had expired in controversy and bankruptcy, Weale no doubt felt himself able to reissue their designs without any mention of their names in his preliminary text (although Busby?s name remains as that of the draughtsman of some of plates 32-55). Designs of this character were however old-fashioned by 1857, and to increase contemporary demand for the volume Weale appends at its end some recent designs for houses in Dovercourt New Town, Harwich, Essex ; Clifton Terrace, Brighton; and, in London, houses in St.John?s Wood, Kilburn, Kentish Town, Westbourne Park and Regent?s Park. These were designs in Italianate or Gothic styles, intended as models for speculative builders, and the only architect credited is Thomas Tatlock, an architect in Dalston, North London. Although Weale?s motives were purely commercial, the volume is of some utility today, for copies of the original printings of the pattern books by Aikin and Busby are now rare and substantially more expensive in the book trade, while the volume remains the only place where the added designs for houses in Dovercourt New Town and so on are published. 4to. 8pp, 67 plates (of which plates 1-31, engraved, are reissues of the plates of Edmund Aikin?s Designs for Villas and other Rural Buildings, 1808 ; plates 32-55, engraved, are reissues of the plates of C.A. Busby?s Series of Designs for Villas and Country Houses, 1808 ; and plates 56-67, woodcuts, are previously unpublished). Publisher?s cloth, faded on upper cover. Some light spotting on the woodcut plates at the end of the volume, and a small crease at top outer corners of plates, but a good copy generally.
Sédille, Paul
First and only edition of this well-written study of British architecture by the French architect Paul Sédille (1836-1900), whose Anglophile sentiments are shown by the fact that he dedicates the book to Sir Frederick Leighton (Lord Leighton), the painter, and by his choice of an image by Alfred Stevens for the design on its front wrapper. He provides an historical introduction, but much of his book is rightly devoted to recent buildings by such architects as Alfred Waterhouse, T.G.Jackson and Norman Shaw, and he poses such necessary questions as ?Qu?est-ce donc que le style Queen Anne ?? The only previous copy of this title that we have had through our hands was that listed by us in our Cat 27, item 104, in 1997. 4to. (8) + 131 + (3) pp, many woodcut text ills. Publisher?s detachable pictorial wrappers (over plain wrappers), the pictorial wrappers rather soiled and dusty (front cover is from a design by Alfred Stevens). Author?s presentation inscription in blue crayon on half-title leaf to ?mon eminent confrère E.Vaudremer? (Emile Vaudremer (1829-1914), winner of the Grand Prix de Rome in 1854, official architect to the city of Paris, and head of an atelier at the Ecole des Beaux Arts). The book is clean and fresh internally.
Aikin, Edmund, Busby, C.A., & others) Weale, John (ed)
A scarce and curious compilation, put together by the architectural bookseller and publisher John Weale as a means of putting to commercial use the surviving copper plates of two architectural pattern books originally published by the Taylor firm as far back as 1808. The first thirty-one plates are those of the architect Edmund Aikin?s Designs for Villas and other Rural Buildings, a volume of designs for villas with Greek Revival features, dedicated by Aikin to Thomas Hope and visually reminiscent of similar pattern books by Joseph Gandy published in 1805-6, while the next twenty-four plates are those of the architect C.A. Busby?s Series of Designs for Villas and Country Houses, in which the designs are more elegant and conventionally classical. As Aikin had died as early as 1820, and Busby?s career had expired in controversy and bankruptcy, Weale no doubt felt himself able to reissue their designs without any mention of their names in his preliminary text (although Busby?s name remains as that of the draughtsman of some of plates 32-55). Designs of this character were however old-fashioned by 1857, and to increase contemporary demand for the volume Weale appends at its end some recent designs for houses in Dovercourt New Town, Harwich, Essex ; Clifton Terrace, Brighton; and, in London, houses in St.John?s Wood, Kilburn, Kentish Town, Westbourne Park and Regent?s Park. These were designs in Italianate or Gothic styles, intended as models for speculative builders, and the only architect credited is Thomas Tatlock, an architect in Dalston, North London. Although Weale?s motives were purely commercial, the volume is of some utility today, for copies of the original printings of the pattern books by Aikin and Busby are now rare and substantially more expensive in the book trade, while the volume remains the only place where the added designs for houses in Dovercourt New Town and so on are published. 4to. 8pp, 67 plates (of which plates 1-31, engraved, are reissues of the plates of Edmund Aikin?s Designs for Villas and other Rural Buildings, 1808 ; plates 32-55, engraved, are reissues of the plates of C.A. Busby?s Series of Designs for Villas and Country Houses, 1808 ; and plates 56-67, woodcuts, are previously unpublished). Publisher?s cloth, faded on upper cover. Some light spotting on the woodcut plates at the end of the volume, and a small crease at top outer corners of plates, but a good copy generally.
Loos, Adolf
The two issues, all published, of this very short-lived periodical, issued and wholly written by the Austrian modernist architect Adolf Loos (1870-1933). Loos had spent three years in the USA in the mid 1890s, and the periodical reflects his view that Austria and Austrians would benefit from a wider adoption of British and North American cultural attitudes. It offers Loos?s opinions on a wide range of social, literary and artistic topics, ranging from fashion and wallpaper to masturbation. 4to. Issues 1 and 2 (all published), each comprising (2) + 11 + (3)pp, with litho text ills. Each issue is stapled at spine as issued, and the pages of each issue are unopened.
Loos, Adolf
The two issues, all published, of this very short-lived periodical, issued and wholly written by the Austrian modernist architect Adolf Loos (1870-1933). Loos had spent three years in the USA in the mid 1890s, and the periodical reflects his view that Austria and Austrians would benefit from a wider adoption of British and North American cultural attitudes. It offers Loos?s opinions on a wide range of social, literary and artistic topics, ranging from fashion and wallpaper to masturbation. 4to. Issues 1 and 2 (all published), each comprising (2) + 11 + (3)pp, with litho text ills. Each issue is stapled at spine as issued, and the pages of each issue are unopened.
Roth, Alfred (ed)
Roth?s La Nouvelle Architecture, first published in 1940, provided its readers with twenty representative examples of the work of architects of the international modern movement, including buildings by Le Corbusier, Neutra, Aalto and architects in Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy and Japan. The selection was deliberately made to stress the suitability of modern movement architecture for the new social order and was left unaltered in each subsequent edition, giving the buildings originally chosen a quite unanticipated prestige among admirers of the style. There is a trilingual text in French, German and English, and the typographic design of the book was by Max Bill. Oblong small folio. (8) + 228pp, many photo ills and plans. Publisher?s cloth, worn at head of spine and at outer corners. Last two leaves with central crease. Bookplate of Sylvia S.Cole, 1948.
Roth, Alfred (ed)
Roth?s La Nouvelle Architecture, first published in 1940, provided its readers with twenty representative examples of the work of architects of the international modern movement, including buildings by Le Corbusier, Neutra, Aalto and architects in Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy and Japan. The selection was deliberately made to stress the suitability of modern movement architecture for the new social order and was left unaltered in each subsequent edition, giving the buildings originally chosen a quite unanticipated prestige among admirers of the style. There is a trilingual text in French, German and English, and the typographic design of the book was by Max Bill. Oblong small folio. (8) + 228pp, many photo ills and plans. Publisher?s cloth, worn at head of spine and at outer corners. Last two leaves with central crease. Bookplate of Sylvia S.Cole, 1948.
Marquez, Pietro
Only edition of this first serious attempt at a reconstruction of the architecture and ground plans of Pliny's Laurentine and Tuscan villas since that by the English writer Robert Castell in the 1720s (of which, not surprisingly, Marquez was unaware). Marquez prints all the relevant passages from Pliny's correspondence, subjects them to careful analysis, and offers an architectural reconstruction as compatible as possible both with Pliny's text and with Vitruvian theory (see the vignette ill. on p.114 for the result). His close study of Vitruvius is also evident in a concluding essay on Vitruvius? celebrated scamilli impares and on the evidence for ancient architecture provided by Holy Writ. Marquez dedicates the book to Count D'Azara, the Spanish minister to the Holy See and the patron and biographer of the painter Mengs, and he mentions a joint visit to a potential site of the Laurentine villa by himself, by the young Spanish architect Silvestro Perez and by Louis Petit Radel, a French cleric from Gascony. Unexpectedly, Marquez (1741-1820) was himself a Mexican, although doubtless of Spanish ancestry and by this time an established writer and historian in Rome, and he may well have been the first Latin American to write in a scholarly way about an architectural subject. Cicognara 559 (=3268). Two copies only reported to NUC (Harvard and University of Illinois, Urbana). 8vo. (8) + 232pp, 2 folding engraved plans, 1 engraved map, 2 engraved vignettes. Contemporary marbled wrappers. The Donaueschingen copy, with faint circular ownership stamp on recto of title, and stamped ownership inscription on its blank verso. Old dampstain affecting lower blank margin of title leaf, and a smaller one slightly affecting last two leaves of volume, but essentially a good, fresh copy, untrimmed as issued.
Lucas, Charles
A scarce little book which provides a summary account of architecture in Portugal from prehistoric times onwards, concentrating for the most part on such well-known buildings as Batalha, Belem and the royal palace at Mafra, but including four useful pages devoted to the architectural work of the author?s friend and contemporary, the architect Juan Possidonio Narciso da Silva, responsible for additions and embellishments to several of the palaces belonging to the Portuguese royal family. The book?s author, Charles Lucas (1838-1905), was himself a practising architect in Paris. It is not very often that we have had through our hands a copy of a book which is, as here, no.1 of a limited edition. 8vo. 58 + (2)pp. Contemporary quarter calf, marbled boards (binding by Stroobants), original printed wrappers bound in. No.1 of 25 numbered copies on ?papier de fil.? (there were also 200 unnumbered copies on ordinary paper, and 5 numbered copies on ?vélin?).
Nibby, Antonio
Only edition of this good scholarly account of the surviving temples, triumphal arches, the columns of Trajan and Phocas, the Colosseum and other structures in the Forum area of central Rome, incorporating information from recent archaeological excavations. Olschki, Choix, 17656. 8vo. 259 + (3)pp, 5 engraved plates (4 folding). Contemporary wrappers, with the printed label of ?Bouchard, Libraire? on the upper cover (this was the bookselling business founded in Rome by Jean Bouchard in the middle of the eighteenth century, still operating in the first half of the nineteenth century from premises in the Piazza di Spagna: the label advertises their stock of books in French, Italian and English, and their stock of prints from books by Canova, Morghen and Volpato). Part of front free endpaper torn away, and the outer corners of the pages rather curled, but an untrimmed copy as issued.
Lethaby, W.R., & Swainson, Harold
First edition of Lethaby and Swainson?s excellent book on the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, based on the authors? personal investigation of the building and their familiarity with all the older literature on it. The present copy, appropriately, was a gift from John Bagnell Bury (1861-1927), the eminent historian of Greece, Rome and the Byzantine empire, to his wife, in the year of the book?s publication. It also contains, loosely inserted at the end, a gilt-decorated Christmas card, dated December 1910, with a printed inscription in Greek from Johannes Gennadius, at that time Greek Ambassador in London, but better known as a scholar and book collector. 8vo. viii + 307 + (1)pp, 75 text ills. Publisher?s cloth,with printed paper label on spine. Ink presentation inscription from J(ohn) B(agnell) B(ury) to his wife Jane Bury, December 1894. No subsequent ownership inscription, but subsequently in the possession of John Bernard Bury (1917-2017), J.B.Bury?s grandson.
Racheli, Antonio
A very substantial history of Sabbioneta, the town in Lombardy laid out on a new site beside the river Po from the 1550s onwards on the instructions of its ruler, Vespasiano Gonzaga (1531-1591), which is one of the most perfect examples of sixteenth century urban planning. The author of the present book, Antonio Racheli, was an assiduous researcher, keen to record every detail of the area?s history from Roman times onwards, and it is not until Book IV, Chapter II, that he gets round to the building of the town in its present form (which he discusses further in Book IV, Chapters IV and V). As there are no illustrations, this is not really a book for architectural historians, but it is helpful for understanding the background to Vespasiano Gonzaga?s career and cultural ambitions. 8vo. 713 + (3)pp. Original printed wrappers. No ownership inscription, but John Bury?s copy.
