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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ESTIENNE, Charles.
De re vestiaria libellus, ex Bayfio excerptus: addita vulgaris linguae interpretatione, in adulesce[n]tuloru[m]...
Paris, Robert Estienne, 1536.
A wonderful sammelband of four children’s books compiled and published by the Estiennes, covering Roman dress and vases as well as plants and trees, bound with Antonio Telesio’s celebrated treatise on colours.
£2250
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STRABO.
Strabonis geographicorum lib. XVII ... iam denuo a Conrado Heresbachio … ad fidem Graeci exemplaris, authorumque …...
Basel, Johann Walder, 1539.
Second edition of Strabo’s masterful Geographica in the Latin translation of the German Humanist and friend of Erasmus, Konrad Heresbach (1496–1576), here found with the first Latin translation of an epitome of Strabo’s work by the Basel professor of physic and logic, Hieronymus Gemusaeus...
£2500
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MARLIANI, Bartolomeo.
Urbis Romae topographia.
Rome, Valerio & Luigi Dorico, September 1544.
First illustrated edition (third overall), showing the archaeology and antiquities of Rome as known in the sixteenth century. First published in octavo by Antonio Blado in 1534 and reprinted at Lyons by Sébastien Gryphe later the same year, Marliani’s topography of Rome remained the foremost...
£5500
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CARTARI, Vincenzo.
Le imagini con la spositione de i dei de gli antichi.
Venice, per Francesco Marcolini, 1556.
First edition of Cartari’s influential and successful treatise on the mythology of the ancients. Cartari concentrated on the iconography of the gods, explaining their guises and detailing their several attributes. His book was expressively written to aid artists, painters, and sculptors to...
£800
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DIODORUS Siculus.
Bibliothecae historicae libri XV. Hoc est, quotquot Graece extant de quadraginta quorum quinque nunc primum Latine...
Basel, Heinrich Petri, August 1559.
Important edition, the first to be overseen by Sébastien Castellion, of Diodorus’s influential ‘Historical library’.
£2500
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PIGHIUS, Stephanus Vinandus.
Themis dea, seu de lege divina … Mythologia … in quatuor anni partes, ab auctore recognita.
Antwerp, Christopher Plantin, 1568.
First and only edition, scarce, of Pighius’s two treatises on Roman archaeology, one of the founding texts of scientific research into myths.
£450
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PORTA, Giambattista della.
De humana physiognomonia … libri IIII; qui ab extimis, quae in hominum corporibus conspiciuntur signis,...
Hanau, Wilhelm Antonius for [Frankfurt,] Peter Fischer, 1593.
The second Latin edition and the first to be published in Germany of this richly illustrated work on physiognomy by the Italian polymath Giambattista della Porta (1535–1615), a beautiful copy in strictly contemporary German white calf.
£2500
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PLINY the Elder.
Historiae mundi libri XXXVII, cum castigationibus et adnotationibus doctiss. & variis praeterea lectionibus ex...
Frankfurt, Claude de Marne and heirs of Jean Aubry, 1608.
First Frankfurt edition of Pliny’s Natural History, here bound as an enormous single volume with strikingly decorated edges featuring acorns and scrolls.
£1400
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PERUCCI, Francesco.
Pompe funebri di tutte le nationi del mondo, raccolte dale storie sagre et profane.
Verona, Francesco Rossi, 1639.
First edition of Perucci’s account of the funeral practices of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, extensively illustrated with engravings copied in reverse from Porcacchi’s 1574 Funerali antichi di diversi popoli, et nationi, inscribed by a Scottish antiquary and documented book collector....
£975
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VIAS, Balthasar de.
In clarissimum virum Nicolaum Claudium Fabricium de Peiresc ... Epicedion.
Marseille, Claude Garcin, 1642.
Uncommon first edition of Balthasar de Vias’s elegant neo-Latin elegy commemorating the life of his friend the scholar, antiquary, and collector Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580–1637) of Aix-en-Provence, the most learned man of his time; our copy contains the extremely rare ‘Encomiasticon’...
£3250
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[HERALDRY.]
Manuscripts relating to Low Countries nobility.
[Low Countries, mid-17th century?].
A fine set of manuscripts relating to Low Countries heraldry and history compiled by a learned local antiquary.
£1500
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HOSSCHIUS, Sidronius.
Sidronii Hosschii e Societate Iesu elegiarum libri sex. Praemittuntur illustrissimorum virorum poemata in...
Antwerp, Balthasar Moretus ‘ex officina Plantiniana’, 1656.
First collected edition of the neo-Latin verse of the Flemish Jesuit and poet Sidronius Hosschius (Sidron de Hossche, 1596–1653), edited after his death by his fellow poet Jacques van de Walle (1599–1690), and prefaced with poems on Hosschius’ death commissioned by the future Pope Alexander...
£600
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FRONTINUS, Sextus Julius.
Sexti Julii Frontini, viri consularis, quae extant. Robertus Keuchenius, S. F. notis et emendationibus...
Amsterdam, Johann à Waesberge, 1661.
The collected works of the first-century civil engineer and Roman general Frontinus, one-time governor of Roman Britain, edited and with extensive notes by the Dutch historian Robert Keuchen (1636–1673).
£250
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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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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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[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).
£110000
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[LOUIS XIV.]
L’oraison funebre de tres-haute, tres-excellente et tres-puissante princesse monarchie universelle. Prononcée le...
‘Cologne’, s.n., ‘1705’ [1704].
Sole edition, very rare and virtually unstudied, of ‘one of the most curious and violent pamphlets published against Louis XIV’ (Pelissier, trans.).
£1250
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MARLBOROUGH, John Churchill, Duke of.
Document, signed ‘Marlborough’, appointing a gunner at the Canadian settlement...
[London,] Office of Ordnance, 24 December 1714.
A commission appointing the intended recipient (never filled in) ‘to be one of the Gunners belonging to his Ma.ties Guarrison of Annapolis Royall, you are therefore Carefully and Diligently to Discharge the Duty of a Gunner in the said service by doing performing all manner of things thereunto belonging...
£950
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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
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[PSALMS.]
Les Pseaumes de David, mis en Vers François, revus et approuvez par le Synode Walon des Provinces-Unies. Nouvelle Edition.
Amsterdam, ‘aux dépens de l’Eglise Françoise de Londres’, 1729’.
New edition of the metrical Psalms of the Pléiade poet Clément Marot and the theologian Théodore de Bèze, extensively revised, with a new version of 149 Psalms, printed for the use of Huguenot émigrés.
£950