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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BATTY, John.
The Scope and Charm of antiquarian Study … Revised and enlarged …
London, George Redway, 1883.
First edition of The Liberty of independent historical research, second edition of The Scope and Charm of Antiquarian Study.
‘What is the use of bothering your head about the past?’ asks John Batty, a Yorkshire antiquary; he provides an answer in this beguilingly written guide...£150
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BEARDSLEY, Aubrey, art editor; Henry HARLAND, literary editor.
The Yellow Book. An Illustrated Quarterly. Volume...
London [– & New York], Elkin Mathews & John Lane [– John Lane, The Bodley Head], and Boston, Copeland & Day, April 1894 [− April 1897].
An excellent set of the first edition of The Yellow Book, the decade-defining illustrated quarterly that captured the spirit of decadence and aestheticism and gave its name to ‘the Yellow Nineties’.
£1750
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BELLARMINO, Roberto.
De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis liber unus. Adiunctis indicibus undecim, & brevi chronologia ab orbe condito...
Paris, Sébastien Cramoisy, 1658.
An uncut copy of Bellarmino’s bibliography of ecclesiastical writers, with extensive eighteenth-century annotations and additions.
£1250
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BELLONI, Girolami, Marchese.
Del Commercio dissertazione.
Rome, Niccolo and Marco Pagliarini, 1757.
Second edition to be authorized by Belloni, (first, 1750) – the first edition to include the author’s considerations on ‘imaginary money’ (pp. 135-154) – of a work notable for its argument in favour of restrictions on the export of money by the Vatican banker Girolamo Belloni (1688–1760)....
£300
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[BENDISCIOLI, Faustino.]
Quadro ossia saggio epilogato del Sistema di liberta’ proclamato dai Francesi.
Milan, Stamperia [dei Patrioti d’Italia] di Strada Nuova, [1799].
An impassioned tract attacking the claims of a new life of liberty promoted in Europe after the French Revolution, very rarely to be found in any of the three editions published in the same year.
£200
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BIANCONI, Giovanni Lodovico.
Descrizione dei circhi particolarmente di quello di Caracalla e dei giuochi in essi celebrati opera...
Rome, nella stamperia Pagliarini, 1789.
First edition of this handsome work on the Circus of Maxentius, this copy formerly in the possession of the great French architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879).
£1600
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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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BLANQUI, Jérôme Adolphe, l’Ainé.
Histoire de l’économie politique en Europe, depuis les anciens jusqu’à nos jours, suivie...
Paris, Guillaumin, 1837.
First edition of ‘the first major history of political economy’ (The New Palgrave). Blanqui (1798–1854) taught at the Institution Massin, where he came into contact with J. B. Say, who was greatly impressed by him. In 1833, he succeeded Say as holder of the chair of political and industrial economy...
£125
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[BOLOGNA.]
Delle oggetti di belle arti nel famoso Tempio di S. Paolo in Bologna e delle vicissitudini di esso brevi notizie.
Bologna, ‘nella stamperia di San Tommaso d’Aquino’, 1831.
First edition of this detailed description of the Baroque masterpieces in the church of San Paolo Maggiore (or San Paolo Decollato) in Bologna, among them works by Guercino and Cavedoni.
£275
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[BOOKPLATE.]
Design for an ex libris for Cortlandt Field Bishop, by Boissy[?].
c. 1910?
The aviator, traveller, and book collector Cortlandt F. Bishop (1870–1935) bought America’s top auction house, American Art Association, in 1923, later merging it with Anderson Galleries – after his death it became Parke-Bernet, bought by Sotheby’s in 1964. Bishop was an avid collector, buying...
£600
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BORBONI, Domenico.
Architectura Dominici Borbonii celeberrimi architecti, et pictoris Bononiensis.
[Bassano,] ‘ex typographio Remondiniano Veneto’, [c. 1670?].
Only known edition of this very rare collection of superb architectural plates by the Bolognese architect and painter Domenico Borboni, published by Giovanni Antonio Remondini, our copy used as a draughtsman’s pattern book.
£3750
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BRADLEY Gertrude M., illustrator.
An archive of drawings for Just Forty Winks.
[c. 1897].
Fifty-eight delightful preliminary pencil sketches by the illustrator Gertrude M. Bradley for Just Forty Winks, Hendry’s tale for children, offered with a copy of the first and only edition, rare in the dustjacket.
£850
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[BRISTOL.]
The Bristol Contest, being a Collection of all the Papers published by both Parties, on the Election, 1754.
Bristol, ‘sold by the Printing-Office … and by J. Palmer’, [1754].
Extremely rare first edition of this Bristol-printed political pamphlet, bound with the first edition of a French work on pyrotechnics used both for spectacle and for war.
£650
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[BRITISH LIBRARY.]
The Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue.
[London,] British Library, 1983.
First and only microfiche edition of ESTC, subsequently expanded into the English Short-Title Catalogue and made obsolete by digitisation.
£175
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BURNE-JONES, Edward.
The Little Holland House Album … with an Introduction & Notes by John Christian.
The Roxburghe Club, 2024
The Little Holland House Album was compiled by Edward Burne-Jones in about 1858-9 for Sophia, Mrs Dalrymple, the youngest of the seven celebrated Pattle sisters who played such an important role in mid-Victorian cultural life. Their centre was Little Holland House in Kensington where another of the...
£75
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BURY, Stephen.
Artists’ books: the book as a work of art, 1963-2000.
London, Bernard Quaritch Ltd, 2015.
The history of artists’ involvement with the book format between 1963 and 2000 includes a fascinating range of artists and movements from Mallarmé to the Piece of Paper Press via Cubism, Futurism, Dada, Fluxus and conceptual art. This second edition includes updated text with new bibliographic descriptions...
£60
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CAPPONI, Alessandro Gregorio, Marchese.
Catalogo della Libreria Capponi o sia de’ Libri Italiani del su Marchese Alessandro...
Rome, Bernabò & Lazzarini, 1747
First and only edition of the catalogue of this remarkable library assembled by Capponi (1683–1746) and containing over five thousand titles, mainly of early Italian literature. The catalogue was compiled by Alessandro Berti with bio-bibliographical notes by Domenico Giorgi. The collection now...
£900
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CAPRA, Alessandro.
Geometria famigliare, et instruttione pratica d’Alessandro Capra architetto cremonese. Per gl’edificii nuovi,...
Cremona, Gio[vanni] Pietro Zanni, 1671.
An exceedingly rare extract from the first edition of the treatise of practical geometry by the architect and inventor Alessandro Capra (c. 1605–c. 1685), seemingly prepared and sold as a manual for surveyors and early estate agents.
£575
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CARDONNEL, Adam de.
Picturesque Antiquities of Scotland [I–II] …
London: Printed for the Author, and sold by Edwards … also by Edwards’s, in Halifax. 1788.
First edition, the very rare issue with the plates in sepia, printed directly onto thick wove paper.
£975
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CARTARI, Vincenzo.
Le imagini con la spositione de i dei de gli antichi ...
Venice, Francesco Marcolini, 1556.
First edition of Cartari’s influential and successful treatise on the mythology of the ancients, the iconographic handbook of painters throughout Europe for the next 250 years.
£800