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. ALAI, Beatrice.

    Le miniature Italiane del Kupferstichkabinett di Berlino.

    Florence, Edizioni Polistampa, 2019.

    From the presentation leaf: ‘Bernard Quaritch Ltd is delighted to be a sponsor of this magnificent publication. We feel sure that our German founder, both as publisher of scholarly works and dealer in medieval manuscripts, would have been proud to support Beatrice Alai’s catalogue of the Italian...

    £75

  2. 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

  3. [CHINESE ARTS DEALER.] ISKANDRIAN-HUPEDEN, A.

    [Cover title:] ‘My Treasure Box’ [Title-page:] ‘Some selected...

    Shanghai, Spring 1938.

    A charming and insightful trade catalogue compiled by a female Chinese arts dealer, covering porcelains, cast bronzes and irons, stone and wood sculpture, lacquered figures, furniture and screens, pottery and embroidery. The colours and dimensions are often described in the text, and the final...

    £1600

  4. CROOKES, William, Sir.

    Autograph letter, signed, to Sir John Evans.

    London, 7 Kensington Park Gardens, 26 May 1892.

    The scientist Sir William Crookes writes to congratulate the archaeologist and geologist John Evans on his imminent knighthood: ‘I must take this opportunity – the last perhaps in which I can call you “Mr” – to offer you my sincere congratulations on the honour which I see is to be conferred...

    £250

  5. DAVY, Sir Humphry.

    Autograph letter, signed, to Charles Stuart, 1st Baron Stuart de Rothesay, discussing the unrolling of papyri...

    ‘23 Grosvenor Street London’, 26 May 1821.

    An unpublished letter in which Davy discusses his examination of papyri entrusted to him in Paris by Sir Charles Stuart, then British Ambassador to France.

    £750

  6. DORDOGNE.

    A collection of photographs of caves in the Dordogne.

    [France, c. 1900].

    A collection of photographs of the Paleolithic grottes and abris of the Les Eyzies district of the Dordogne, first excavated by Lartet and Christy in the 1860s. The photographs show the hillsides where the caves are situated, with individual houses or whole villages built into the mountains, the occasional...

    £150

  7. FOUNTAINE, Andrew.

    Catalogue of the celebrated Fountaine collection of Majolica, Henri II Ware, Palissy Ware, Nevers Ware, Limoges...

    [London], 1884

    First day only of the Majolica sale of the Fountaine collection. Andrew Fountain (1676-1753) was ‘the predecessor of Horace Walpole as an arbiter of taste and virtu’ (ODNB). His engravings and drawings were sold in July 1884, pictures in 1894 and porcelain in 1904.

    £25

  8. GARGIULO, Raffaele.

    Cenni sulla maniera di rinvenire i vasi fittili Italo-Greci. Sulla loro costruzione, sulle loro fabbriche più...

    Naples, Tipografia Virgilio, 1843.

    Second, revised and enlarged edition (first 1831), illustrated with sixteen handsome engraved plates.

    £275

  9. GERVASIO, Agostino.

    Intorno alla iscrizione puteolana de’ Luccei osservazioni ...

    Naples, Stamperia Reale, 1851.

    First edition. Gervasio attempts a new interpretation of an ancient inscription discovered in Pozzuoli.

    £150

  10. 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

  11. 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

  12. 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

  13. 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

  14. 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

  15. ROLAS DU ROSEY, Carl.

    Die Kupferstiche, Handzeichnungen und Kunstbibliothek ... deren erste Hälfte Montag, den 13. Juni 1864 [-...

    Leipzig, Rudolf Weigel, 1864.

    Sale catalogue of the print and drawing collection assembled by the Prussian general Baron Rolas du Rosey (d. 1862). In all 7160 lots were sold. The prices achieved were moderate.

    £250

  16. [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

  17. [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

  18. (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

  19. [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

  20. 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