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. RUSCELLI, Girolamo.

    Le imprese illustri con espositioni, et discorsi …

    [(Colophon:) Venice, Comin da Trino di Monferrato, 1572.]

    Second edition of one of the finest emblem books of the sixteenth century, illustrated with over one hundred engravings depicting the imprese of notable figures in Italy and beyond, our copy bound for Giacomo Boncompagni, illegitimate son of Pope Gregory XIII.

    £2750

  2. 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

  3. TACITUS; J.N. LALLEMAND, editor.

    Quae exstant opera.

    Paris, J. Barbou for Desaint & Saillant, 1760.

    A handsomely bound set, with striking gilt brocade endpapers preserving the name of the Augsburg manufacturer, elegantly ‘printed by Barbou and called by Harwood “one of the most beautiful and correct of all his classics.” The text is from Ernesti’s first edition, but it contains the readings...

    £750

  4. THEOCRITUS et al.

    Theocriti aliorumque poetarum Idyllia. Eiusdem Epigrammata …

    [Geneva], Henri Estienne, 1579. [bound with:] [PSALTER.] Psalmorum Davidis … [Geneva], Henri Estienne, 1575.

    An outstanding volume uniting the Estienne Greek bucolic poets (Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus) and the Estienne Greek Psalms in an Henri Estienne presentation binding.

    £9000

  5. [WALLET.]

    Wallet with manuscript and printed waste.

    France, c. 1790.

    An attractive late eighteenth-century wallet in the guise of a wallet-bound book, possibly re-using an earlier eighteenth-century binding, the interior compartments composed of manuscript and printed waste.

    £950

  6. [WALLPAPER BINDING.]

    ‘Chassereau des Biens et Rentes deves a joseph Paul Roegier et marie margu te [sic] Bourdeau son espouse,...

    Hainaut, 1750–1773.

    A manuscript account book compiled by Joseph Paul Roegier and his son, recording receipts over a quarter-century, in an attractive and unusual binding reusing a large fragment of gilt leather wallpaper.

    £3500