Art & Architecture
Contact Alex Day or Andrea Mazzocchi
Art & Architecture encompasses a broad sweep of material, from early works concerning architecture and architectural history, and books and manuscripts on the fine arts and aesthetics, antiquities and archaeology, to pattern and design books, and private press books and fine bindings. The department also handles original artwork, artistic archives, posters, and propaganda material.
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ROUQUET, Jean-André.
The present State of the Arts in England. By M. Rouquet, member of the Royal Academy of Painting and...
London, for J. Nourse, 1755.
First edition in English, published in the same year as the French original, from the library of the great Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith (1723–1790).
£19500
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FENTON, Roger.
Lichfield Cathedral, south transept portal and steps.
1858.
A fine print of one of Fenton's most striking architectural photographs, the details of the stonework given human scale, and a touch of mystery, with the figure posed half-in and half-out of the doorway. It was one of a number of images of Lichfield which 'from a restricted distance, move around the...
£12500
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[LOO, Pieter van, attributed.]
156 watercolours of flowers, plants, and fruits.
[Holland, c. 1760–80].
A truly stunning collection of over 150 original eighteenth-century botanical watercolours, attributed to the noted Dutch botanical artist Pieter van Loo (1731–1784).
£100000
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[OXFORD UNIVERSITY.]
Pietas Universitatis Oxoniensis in obitum serenissimi Regis Georgii II. et gratulatio in augustissimi Regis...
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1761.
First edition, one of fifty copies on large paper, an exceptional survival in the most luxurious (and fragile) of presentation bindings: full purple velvet with gold-fringed purple silk ties, typically reserved for a handful or fewer of royal copies.
£10000
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HURTADO, Eugenio, scribe.
[Missal for feast days.]
Madrid, 1827.
An extraordinary and enormous liturgical manuscript with painted and stencilled decorations, in a remarkable binding on wheels for ease of movement
£9500
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THEOCRITUS et al.
Theocriti aliorumque poetarum Idyllia. Eiusdem Epigrammata …
[Geneva], Henri Estienne, 1579.
An outstanding volume uniting the Estienne Greek bucolic poets (Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus) and the Estienne Greek Psalms in an Henri Estienne presentation binding.
£9000
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BARLOW, [Francis].
Barlow’s Birds and Beasts, in sixty-seven excellent and useful Prints, being a Collection of the chief Works...
London, Carington Bowles, [John Bowles, and Robert Sayer], [1775].
An extremely rare edition of this drawing-book collecting several suites of plates by or after Francis Barlow, with a particularly fine suite of etchings by Wenceslaus Hollar.
£8500
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MÄNDL, Kaspar.
Christliche Sitten-Lehr und heylsame Anmuthungen gezogen auß Betrachtung deß bitteren Leyden und Sterbens unsers...
Augsburg, Matthias Wolff, 1737.
A superb example of Rococo decorative binding, exploiting all available materials – silks, metals, beads, papers, gilding, and leather – to extraordinary (if perhaps excessive) effect.
£6750
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MERULA, Giorgio.
Enarrationes Satyrarum Juvenalis.
Treviso, Bartholomaeus Confalonerius, [not before May] 1478.
The first book printed by Bartolomeo Confalonieri da Salò in Treviso, Michael Wodhull’s copy, bound and ruled for him by the London binder Maria Wier.
£6500
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MEFFRET, Johann.
Sermones Meffreth alias Ortulus regine de tempore. Pars hyemalis.
[Basel, Nicolaus Kesler, not after 1485.]
A volume of sermons with early English annotations, in a binding featuring tools attributed to an early Cambridge workshop known as the Unicorn Binder.
£6500
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HELMAN, Isidore-Stanislas-Henri.
Faits mémorables des empereurs de la Chine, tirés des annales Chinoises, dédiés à Madame,...
Paris, chez l’auteur … et chez M. Ponce, [1788].
Two handsome engraved works by the French engraver and printseller Helman (1743–1806/9), here on uncut sheets, the first depicting scenes from Chinese history, the second episodes in the life of Confucius (Kong Fuzi).
£6000
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MARLIANI, Bartolomeo.
Urbis Romae topographia.
Rome, Valerio & Luigi Dorico, September 1544.
First illustrated edition (third overall), considerably expanded, providing a comprehensive visual record of ancient structures and sculptures in Rome as known in the sixteenth century.
£5500
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BIBLE.
Biblia cum concordantiis veteris et novi testamenti et sacrorum canonum: necnon & additionibus in marginibus varietatis...
[(Colophon:) Lyons, Jean Marion, for Anton II Koberger in Nuremberg, 19 August 1520.]
A handsomely printed Bible in a contemporary Silesian or Bohemian binding, richly annotated by a Protestant scholar and with numerous woodcuts in contemporary colouring.
£5500
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[BIBLE.]
The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments … diligently compared and revised …
Oxford, T. Wright and W. Gill, 1769.
First quarto edition of the Oxford ‘standard’ Bible, as revised by Benjamin Blayney of Hertford College, Oxford (1728–1801), later Regius Professor of Hebrew. The quarto and folio editions of 1769, of which this was the first to be finished, were printed from the same setting of type differently...
£5250
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[WALLPAPER.]
A substantial album of printed wallpaper samples.
France, 1923–24.
A delightful sample album of French wallpapers printed by a variety of stencil, block and lithographic methods, on papers plain, coloured, textured, and silked.
£4750
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SPON, Jacob.
Voyage d’Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grece, et du Levant, fait aux années 1675 et 1676 par Jacob Spon docteur medecin...
Lyons, Antoine Cellier, 1678.
Very rare first edition of ‘one of the most important accounts of travels in the Levant, and the first description of Athens which was systematic, detailed, and trustworthy’ (Blackmer).
£4750
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ERNST, Max.
Une semaine de bonté ou les sept éléments capitaux. Roman. Premier [– Dernier] cahier …
Paris, Éditions Jeanne Bucher, 1934.
First edition, no. 706 of 800 copies on papier Navarre from a total edition of 816, of the most famous of Max Ernst’s Surrealist ‘collage novels’, composed entirely of recomposed images drawn from illustrations to nineteenth-century novels, encyclopaedias, scientific journals, and engravings...
£4500
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[PRIMER.]
Preces privatae, in studiosorum gratia[m] collectae & Regia authoritate approbatae …
London, William Seres, 1568.
Second edition of this rare ‘private’ prayer book, first printed in 1564, with a calendar, a Latin catechism for children, selected psalms, and a Latin–English list of English islands, counties, cathedral cities, bishoprics, rivers, and ports.
£4250
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NORMAND, Alfred Nicolas.
L’architecture des nations étrangères. Etude sur les principales constructions du parc à l’Exposition...
Paris, A. Morel, 1870.
First edition. This is a presentation copy, inscribed on the half-title to the author’s friend Charles Garnier, architect of the Paris opera house that bears his name: ‘A son ami Ch. Garnier. Souvenir affectueux A. Normand’. The two men had known each other since they were both ‘pensionnaires’...
£4000
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SCHÜBLER, Johann Jacob, et al.
Designs for furniture, funerary monuments, garden buildings.
Augsburg, [c. 1710s–20s].
An interesting sammelband containing over fifty handsome engraved plates with late Baroque designs for furniture, monuments, and summerhouses, published at Augsburg by Jeremias Wolff (1663–1724) and his heirs, and by Joseph Friedrich Leopold (1668–1727).
£3750