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. ROUQUET, Jean-André. 

    The present State of the Arts in England.  By M. Rouquet, member of the Royal Academy of Painting and...

    London, for J. Nourse, 1755. 

    First edition in English, published in the same year as the French original, from the library of the great Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith (1723–1790). 

    £19500

  2. [SALON DE 1850.]

    Explication des ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, architecture, gravure et lithographie des artists vivants exposés...

    Paris, 1850.

    Catalogue for the Salon of 1850, the exhibition of contemporary French artists in Paris. The submissions of architectural drawings get the most detailed treatment although the first medal in the architecture section was not awarded.

    £75

  3. 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

  4. THENOT, Jean Pierre.

    Vollständige Anweisung zur Aquarellmalerei und zum Tuschen ... 1. Heft (all published).

    Leipzig, Kirchner, 1837.

    First German edition, originally published the preceding year in Paris. A charming watercolour manual.

    £350

  5. 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

  6. [VILLAMENA, Francesco].

    A street fight in Rome. A fan leaf drawing.

    [Italy, late 18th century].

    A fine fan leaf drawing, Italian school, late 18th century, copied from a print by Francesco Villamena of c. 1601. It depicts a street fight between Spanish and French factions in Rome with a view of the villa Mattei in the background. The original copper engraving by Villamena was dedicated to the patron...

    £2200

  7. VOLOSHIN, Maksimilian Aleksandrovich.

    O Repine [On Repin] …

    Moscow, “Ole-Lukoie”, 1913.

    First edition thus: three pieces written earlier in the year and published in journals on the work of Ilya Repin (1844–1930), often regarded as Russia’s national artist. At the end is an extract from a lecture (1885) by Landtsert on the painting ‘Ivan the Terrible and his Son’. Voloshin (1877–1932)...

    £450

  8. WAAGEN, Gustav Friederich.

    Verzeichnis der Gemälde-Sammlung des Königlichen Museums zu Berlin.

    Berlin, 1837.

    Sixth edition of Waagen’s catalogue of the Berlin picture gallery, with fifteen new paintings.

    £150