William Chambers’ Treatise on Civil Architecture of 1759 was sold at £480, while Vol. II only of Colen Campbell’s Vitruvius Britannicus, or the British Architect, containing 75 plates, raised £920 and an incomplete copy of Abraham Swan’s The British Architect; or, the Builders Treasury of Stair-cases, 1758, containing 58 (of 60) engraved plates, made £420.
A four-vol. Stuart & Revett Antiquities of Athens.., a new edition of 1825-30 illustrated with 193 engraved plates, was sold at £920, but bidding rose to £1150 for a well known Country Life publication of 1950, A.S.G. Butler’s three-vol. study of The Architecture of Sir Edwin Lutyens. The fourth volume of the ‘Lutyens Memorial’, Hussey’s biography of Lutyens, was not part of this lot.
Bearnes, Exeter, August 21
Buyer’s Premium: 15 per cent
Architectural Adornment
ISAAC WARE’S Complete Body of Architecture, a calf bound 1768 edition illustrated, or rather “adorned” with engraved plates of “...plans and elevations from original designs... in which are interspersed some designs of Inigo Jones”, was one of a small group of architectural books that brought most of the higher bids in this Bearne's sale on 21 August.
