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. MICHETTI, Charles.

    Catalogue des estampes des plus grands maitres, tableaux, bagues, livres, vases, idoles, &. qui composent la...

    Vienna, 1790.

    First edition. Description of the cabinet assembled by Charles Michetti in Vienna. Michetti stresses in his introduction that his collection was put together not for financial gain but because he liked the look of the pieces and appreciated their artistic merit. The bulk of the collection is made up...

    £350

  2. MIDDLETON, Charles.

    Designs for Gates and Rails suitable to Parks, Pleasure Grounds, Balconys &c, also some Design for Trellis...

    London, Published by J. Taylor, at the Architectural Library …, [c. 1805].

    First edition of this charming pattern book of garden designs by Charles Middleton which concentrates on gates, rustic fences and trelliswork. Middleton was a pupil of William Paine, and rather than finding success as a building architect he produced a number of fine architectural pattern books.

    £675

  3. MIGEON, Gaston.

    Les arts musulmans.

    Paris and Brussels, G. van Oest, 1926.

    First edition, published in the series Bibliothèque d’histoire de l’art.

    £85

  4. [MONROE, Marilyn.] 

    DIENES, André de.  Marilyn. 

    Cologne, Taschen, 2002. 

    First edition of this celebratory book on Marilyn Monroe, collecting photographs by her friend (and briefly lover) André de Dienes, who met Norma-Jean in 1945 and helped launch her career. 

    £200

  5. [MUSÉE NAPOLÉON.]

    Notice des tableaux exposés dans la Galerie Napoléon.

    Paris, Bubray, 1810.

    Pocket guide to the pictures exhibited in the Musée Napoléon. The collection was largely composed of paintings looted by Napoleon; the museum was dissolved after Waterloo and and attempts were made to return the pictures to their rightful owners.

    £125

  6. MYERS, Robin, Andrew BURNETT, and Renae SATTERLEY.

    ‘I do not eat the bread of idleness’: Dr Andrew Coltée Ducarel 1713–1785,...

    The Garendon Press, 2023.

    This volume brings together revised versions of four of Robin Myers’s papers on aspects of Ducarel’s life and work published between 1994 and 2002, and ‘The Life and Times of the Ducarel Brothers’, her recent introductory essay to Two Huguenot Brothers: Letters of Andrew and James Coltée...

    £45

  7. MYERS, Robin, Michael HARRIS, and Giles MANDELBROTE (eds).

    Lives in Book History: Changing Contours of Research over...

    Leicester, Garendon Press, 2022.

    ‘This volume has grown out of one event in a long series of annual conferences on book-trade history – held to mark the fortieth conference in 2018. For this we had asked nine well-known book historians to give a retrospective review of their field, be it manuscripts, incunabula, book binding, and...

    £35

  8. [NATIONAL SOCIALISM] [OCCUPIED FRANCE]

    Finis les mauvais jours! Papa gagne de l’argent en Allemagne! [The bad days are over!...

    [Paris], Office de Répartition de l´Affichage, 1943.

    Rare, encouraging the voluntary relocation of French workers from impoverished and semi-starved France to Germany factories.

    £350

  9. NIXON, Howard M. 

    Broxbourne Library: Styles and Designs of Bookbindings from the twelfth to the twentieth Century … with an...

    London, Maggs Brothers for the Broxbourne Library, 1956. 

    First edition, one of three hundred copies, of Howard Nixon’s richly illustrated catalogue of the bindings in the library of Albert Ehrman.

    £875

  10. 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

  11. OPPENORD, Gilles-Marie.

    Album containing plates from the Grand Oppenord and several rare proof plates.

    Paris, chez Huquier, [c. 1740].

    An interesting album containing plates from the Grand Oppenord, Huquier’s important publication issuing the ornament designs of Oppenord in print. Oppenord (1672-1742) was an important contributor to the development of the rococo style in Europe, adapting Italian baroque ornament to suit French taste....

    £2500

  12. [OPTICAL PRINT.] 

    ‘No. 5.  Morgan’s improved protean scenery: Mount Vesuvius, as represented at the Surrey Zoological Gardens...

    London, Published by W. Morgan, [c. 1837]. 

    A remarkable metamorphic or ‘protean’ print depicting a dormant Vesuvius by day but, when held up to the light, showing a dramatic eruption in the night sky. 

    £675

  13. [PAPER TRADE.] 

    Arrest du conseil d’état du roi, portant modération et interprétation de plusieurs articles du tarif des...

    [Besançon?, 1772?] 

    A seemingly unrecorded issue of this decree governing tariffs on paper and cardboard in Louis XV’s France, with no imprint but with the colophon ‘fait à Besançon le 18 avril 1772, signé, Lacoré’. 

    £175

  14. PAPINI, Roberto.

    Le Arti d’Oggi: Architettura e Arti Decorative in Europa.

    Milan and Rome, Bestetti and Tumminelli, 1930.

    First edition of a thorough and extensively illustrated survey of architectural and artistic styles and artworks from across Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, compiled by the Italian art historian Roberto Papini (1883–1957), director of the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan and later...

    £300

  15. [PARIS UPRISING.]

    Votez toujours. Je ferai le reste [Always vote. I’ll do the rest].

    Paris, Comite d'initiative pour un movement revolutionnaire, Imprimerie Robert et Cie, 1968.

    First edition. A striking image of General De Gaulle patting France on the head for obediently voting, a baton cunningly concealed behind him. 1968 was a year when passions were flying high in France. The communist and socialist parties had formed an alliance in February with a view to replacing...

    £550

  16. PARKER, Thomas Netherton.

    Leaves out of the Book of a Country Gentleman.

    Oswestry, W. Price, London, Longman & co., and Shrewsbury, Eddowes & Leake, 1847.

    First and only edition of this very rare compilation by Parker of his farm and estate experiments and inventions, one of one hundred copies privately published, and presented by the author to the Earl of Powis.

    £1950

  17. PARLIAMENTARY RECRUITING COMMITTEE.

    Which? Have you a reason or only an excuse for not enlisting Now!

    London, The Abbey Press, 1915.

    A forthright call to the men of London, encouraging them to enlist for military service during World War One.

    £250

  18. PAYNE, Anthony.

    Richard Hakluyt. A guide to his books and to those associated with him, 1580–1625.

    [London], Quaritch, 2008.

    In this guide various approaches to Hakluyt’s books are suggested under a number of interrelated headings – his patronage and connections; Italian and French influences; his use of illustration and his presentation of texts; his intentions; and his impact and readership. It is hoped that it will...

    £20