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.

  1. SAULCY, Louis Félicien, Caignart de.

    Note sur une inscription punique découverte au Cap Carthage en 1841. Lue à l’Académie...

    [Paris], Imprimerie Royale, 1843.

    Rare offprint from the Journal Asiatique on a stone found at Carthage inscribed with Phoenician text, and a contribution to the deciphering and study of the Phoenician-Punic language.

    £250

  2. [SCHLOSSER, Johann Albert].  BODDAERT, Pieter.

    Epistola ad … Hier. Dav. Gaubium … De chaetodonte diacantho, descripto atque...

    Amsterdam, apud M. Magerum, 1772.

    First and only edition of Boddaert’s description of the Royal Angelfish found in the Schlosser natural history cabinet.  This is the first monograph on the Royal Angelfish (and its first illustration), a now common species of coral fish in the Pacific and Indian Ocean. 

    £500

  3. [SCHLOSSER, Johann Albert.] BODDAERT, Pieter. 

    Epistola ad virum celeberrimum Johannem Burmannum … De Chaetodonte Argo descripto...

    Amsterdam, apud Cornelium van Tongerlo, 1770.

    First and only edition of Boddaert’s description of this Indo-West Pacific fish species found in the Schlosser natural history cabinet. 

    £500

  4. 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

  5. SCHÜBLER, Johann Jakob.

    Amor, vehementer quidem flagrans; artificiose tamen celatus, de Pantalonis custodiaque triumphans, intentato...

    Augsburg, Johann Michael Probst, [c. 1770?].

    Rare series of twelve engravings inspired by the Italian commedia dell’arte, one of the most beautiful books of the German Rococo, engraved by Johann Balthasar Probst after original illustrations by the architectural painter, sculptor, and mathematician Johann Jakob Schübler.

    £7500

  6. (SCHWERIN) (GLOECKER, A.F.W).

    Bibliothek des Vereins für Meklenburgische Geschichte und Alterthumskunde, wie solche am Ende des...

    … Erste Fortsetzung 1837 … [until] … Achte Fortsetzung 1844. (Schwerin), 1836-1844.

    The Verein für Mecklenburgische Geschichte (‘Association for the history of Mecklenburg’) was founded in 1835. Here we have the catalogue of its library, with over 1500 books, as it grew over the years from its foundation to 1844. This is a fascinating record of local interest books, some published...

    £150

  7. SHENSTONE, William.

    The Works, in Verse and Prose… in three Volumes … Fifth Edition …

    London: Printed for J. Dodsley … 1777.

    Fifth edition of the Works (1764), the first edition of which was planned by Shenstone but published after his death, with Robert Dodsley’s description of Shenstone’s important garden at The Leasowes, one of the first natural landscape gardens in England and one of the most influential,...

    £325

  8. [SMITH, John William.] 

    A Catalogue of the Books, Manuscripts and Prints, belonging to [John William Smith] … 

    London, Letts, Son & Co, [1870s-90s]. 

    A manuscript book catalogue employing a printed form.  John William Smith, of Clifton Terrace, Westbourne Terrace, and then Queens Gate, had a relatively predictable library of largely nineteenth-century material including history, classics, and literature (much Dickens and Tennyson), plus a smattering...

    £300

  9. SMITH, William.

    An authentic account of the life and memoirs of Mr. William Smith, an unfortunate convict, executed at Tyburn,...

    London, for J. Jefferies, 1750.

    The last account of William Smith, son of an Irish vicar, containing the story of how he came to be executed for forgery, in addition to odes written by Smith shortly before his execution.

    £40

  10. [SOCIETY OF ARTISTS.]

    A Catalogue of the Pictures, Sculptures, Models, Designs in Architecture, Drawings, Prints, &c. Exhibited...

    Printed by Harriot Bunce, Printer to the Society. 1774.

    First edition of the Catalogue for the selling exhibition of 1774. The Society of Artists emerged in 1760 as a loose association of artists, including Joshua Reynolds and Francis Hayman, who wanted greater control over exhibitions of their work than they experienced under William Shipley’s Society...

    £1100

  11. [SOCIETY OF JESUS.] 

    Les découvertes d’un bibliophile réduites a leur juste valeur.  Avec quelques cas de conscience curieux. 

    Strasbourg, L.F.  Le Roux, [1843]. 

    First edition of this scathing response to Busch’s anti-Jesuit Les découvertes d’un bibliophile, central to the highly polemical ‘affaire du Bibliophile’ which divided Strasbourg in 1843. 

    £375

  12. [SOUTH AMERICA.]

    Album of sketches made in Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela.

    1840s?

    An attractive album of sketches by an anonymous Francophone artist made during a trip to South America.

    £2750

  13. SOWERBY, J[ohn] G[eorge], and Thomas CRANE, illustrators.  [Eliza KEARY.] 

    At Home. 

    London and Belfast, Marcus Ward & Co., [1881]. 

    Original maquette for this charming Victorian children’s book, illustrated by the stained-glass designer John George Sowerby and decorated by Thomas Crane, elder brother of the illustrator Walter Crane.  The verse, unacknowledged, is by Eliza Keary (1827–1918).  At Home and its sequels Abroad...

    £500

  14. 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

  15. STODDARD, Roger.

    Jacques-Charles Brunet, Le Grand Bibliographe. A guide to the books he wrote, compiled, and edited and to the...

    [London], Quaritch, 2007.

    As an undergraduate in Brown University Roger Stoddard operated a second-hand bookshop from his dormitory room, issuing modest catalogues while working for Goodspeed’s Book Shop in the summer months. From 1958 until 1961 he assisted William Jackson, Librarian of the Houghton Library, and from 1961...

    £60

  16. 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

  17. [STRASBOURG.]

    Souscription patriotique de la part du beau-sexe de Strasbourg.

    [S.l., s.n., 1789?.]

    Rare first edition of this entertaining satirical piece on women's clothing, published in the aftermath of the French Revolution. After complaining that the recent craze for ‘gauze, muslin, linen and feathers’ had brought the country to its knees, the text describes how the patriotic women...

    £165

  18. TALBOT RICE, David.

    Notice on some religious buildings in the city and vilayet of Trebizond. Extrait de Byzantion, tome...

    Brussels, Secrétariat de la Revue, 1930.

    An offprint from Byzantion. The distinguished Byzantine scholar David Talbot Rice was a lifelong friend of Robert Byron, one of his travelling companions during the visit to Mount Athos recorded in Byron’s The Station, and co-author with him of The birth of Western painting.

    £65