ALBUM
of watercolours and pencil drawings including roses and tulips, birds, insects, 12 architectural scale drawings, and two ‘Chinese’ drawings.
England, mid-eighteenth century?
Oblong large 8vo, ff. [51], plus blanks; with sketches in pencil, and more elaborate drawings in red, green and yellow, with occasional touches in blue or purple; on Dutch laid paper watermarked LV Gerrevink (cf. Churchill 1935, the mill active 1690 to 1819); in very good condition, in the original reversed calf, panelled in blind, joints and edges worn.
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of watercolours and pencil drawings including roses and tulips, birds, insects, 12 architectural scale drawings, and two ‘Chinese’ drawings.
An attractive sketchbook, seemingly the work of an unidentified architect or decorative artist.
The architectural drawings, in pencil with scale measurements in pen, are of several pavilions in a neoclassical style, some with pyramidal roofs, linked by a curved wall. The largest pavilion has a courtyard, and there are elevations of all four internal facades, which feature a staircase running up two sides.
Other contents include eleven watercolour flower-pieces of roses and fringed tulips, several leaves of smaller flower studies, and large watercolours of a parrot, an owl, and a cabbage leaf with insects. One of two drawings executed in imitation of Chinese export art features an ornate marble plinth with a base reminiscent of coral – a pencil sketch featuring the plinth alone suggests it may have had a physical model. Further pencil sketches include a figure study and a landscape with a windmill.
