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. ‘MAWE, Thomas’ [but John ABERCROMBIE]. 

    Every Man his own Gardener.  Being a new, and much more complete Gardener’s...

    London: Printed for W. Griffith … 1767. 

    Second edition, published in the same year as the first, of an immensely popular work, which went through at least twenty-five editions.  ‘Abercrombie was the son of a market gardener near Edinburgh who went on to be a gardener at Kew and Leicester House, as well as for a number of noblemen...

    £225

  2. SHENSTONE, William.

    The Works, in Verse and Prose… in three Volumes … Fifth Edition …

    London: Printed for J. Dodsley … 1777.

    Fifth edition of the Works (1764), the first edition of which was planned by Shenstone but published after his death, with Robert Dodsley’s description of Shenstone’s important garden at The Leasowes, one of the first natural landscape gardens in England and one of the most influential,...

    £325

  3. [STRASBOURG.]

    Souscription patriotique de la part du beau-sexe de Strasbourg.

    [S.l., s.n., 1789?.]

    Rare first edition of this entertaining satirical piece on women's clothing, published in the aftermath of the French Revolution. After complaining that the recent craze for ‘gauze, muslin, linen and feathers’ had brought the country to its knees, the text describes how the patriotic women...

    £165

  4. 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

  5. [LABOURS OF THE MONTHS &c.] 

    Januarius.  Februarius.  Merz.  April … 

    Nuremberg, Joh. Andreae Endterische Handlung, [second half of eighteenth century]. 

    A scarce popular print depicting the labours of the months and signs of the zodiac, four continents, the four classical elements, and the four seasons. 

    £475

  6. 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

  7. TOMS, William. 

    Thirty-six new original and practical designs for chairs, adapted for the Drawing and Dining Room, Parlour and...

    Bath, W. Evans, [c. 1830]. 

    A fine and rare furniture pattern book by William Toms, ‘carver in general’ at Bath. 

    £650

  8. BOLZANI, A. M.

    Wegweiser zum Seidenbau für Nord-Deutschland und insbesondere für Preussen.

    Berlin, Vereinsbuchhandlung, 1831.

    First edition. Bolzani, originally from Como in Italy, was a picture- and print-dealer in Berlin who also ran a successful silkworm cultivation enterprise. His book deals with all aspects of sericulture. Bolzani was especially keen to have Prussian state funding for silkworm cultivation and corresponded...

    £275

  9. [ANTIQUARIAN]

    Architectural Antiquities from the Sussex Coast.

    [Sussex], July 21st – 10th August 1837.

    An interesting and charming antiquarian manuscript illustrating medieval fonts, gothic windows, brasses, architectural details, and funerary sculptures found in churches along the Sussex coast. The anonymous author/draughtsman gives provenances and historical detail to the drawings, which capture the...

    £950

  10. 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

  11. DOLLMAN, Francis C.

    Examples of antient pulpits existing in England, selected and drawn from sketches and measurements taken on...

    First edition of this scholarly study of gothic pulpits by a student of the elder Pugin.

    £85

  12. [COLOGNE.]

    Hotel de Belle Vue à Deutz vis-à-vis de Cologne tenu pour J.A. Kimmel. [

    Cologne, c. 1850

    A ambitious lithograph advertisement for the Hotel de Belle Vue in Deutz, facing Cologne over the Rhine. The finely engraved view of the hotel shows it with its surrounding park lying on the Rhine which is bustling with barges, there is a bridge crossing the river full of promenading people. The litho...

    £250

  13. [BRIDGE, Stephen.]

    Illuminated memorial manuscript on vellum presented ‘To the Rev. Stephen Bridge on his relinquishing the incumbency...

    [Designed and executed by Witherby & Co., London, 1868.]

    A beautiful memorial volume presented to Rev. Stephen Bridge (c. 1811–1895) along with a silver salver and a purse of £1000 in gratitude for his service as minister of St Matthew’s Denmark Hill since 1844, on the occasion of his transfer to the living of Droxford, Hampshire.

    £850

  14. ROBINSON, W.

    The Parks and Gardens of Paris, considered in Relation to the Wants of other Cities and of public and private Gardens,...

    London, John Murray, 1883.

    Third edition of an attractively illustrated guide to the parks and gardens of Paris. The gardener and horticulturalist William Robinson (1838–1935) combines descriptions of the green spaces of the city with observations on the methods of their maintenance, and compares French horticulture with...

    £60

  15. 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

  16. 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

  17. 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

  18. DALI, Salvador.

    Alpes: French Railways.

    France, Draeger for SNCF, 1970.

    A gorgeous and colourful surrealist design of delicate butterflies fluttering against a rugged Alpine backdrop, one of six designs commissioned from Dali by SNCF, French national railways, to promote travel into the Alpine region.

    £250

  19. DALI, Salvador.

    Normandie. French Railways.

    France, Draeger for SNCF, 1970.

    Mont Saint-Michel meets stone circles, butterflies and surrealist heads in this promotional SNCF poster for train travel in Normandy.

    £200

  20. DALI, Salvador.

    Roussillon. French Railways.

    France, Draeger for SNCF, 1970.

    Further butterfly-interspersed surrealism for SNCF, this time for the Roussillon
    region, featuring a stylised cross of Languedoc above a beach scene against a
    mountainous backdrop

    £250