The Antiquities of Athens, Measured and Delineated. Vols. I + II, Bound In One (of 4 Vols.)
London: Priestley and Weale, 1825. New edition. Hardcover. Folio. 2 leaves, 82pp., xxxvi plates, one of them a double plate; 1 leave, 112pp., xlix plates, two of them double plates. Original calf with gilt lettering and ruling on spine, raised bands. Double-marbled edges and endpapers. Title pages with one lithograph each. Lithographic head and endpiece in volume one. Volumes III and IV were published later in 1830. Profusely illustrated with eighty-five extraordinary full page engravings on heavy linen paper, three of them double pages. Contains list of plates in both volumes.
Between 1751 and 1754, James Stuart and Nicholas Revett labored among the ruined temples of ancient Athens, shouting measurements to each other and assembling a monumental archive of drawings and diagrams of Hellenic temples, friezes, ornaments, facades, columns, landscapes and floor plans. Their "Antiquities of Athens, with its text and engraved plates contained the first painstaking survey of ancient Hellenic architecture. Its publication in 1762 set the stage for the Greek Revival movement that for over a century dominated the architecture of Britain, Europe, and the United States.
The volume represents the foundation of the collection, for it was upon the discoveries and fastidious observations of its authors that inspired many of the collection's subsequent pattern books. By the time of its publication in 1825, John "Athenian" Stuart, the impoverished son of a Scottish sailor, had become a Scottish icon. This edition, exquisitely bound by J. Carss, contains all of the authors' plates, illustrating by careful measurement the principles of a Hellenic architectural tradition based on the proportions ancient Greeks observed nature.
Provenance: from the collection of Professor Clarence Ward of Oberlin College. He is believed to be the first American to receive a doctorate in art history. Clarence Ward became a renowned authority on Gothic architecture whose prewar photographs of European cathedrals were collected by the National Archive and featured in such works as Janson's "History of Art." He purchased the earliest American architectural books in the collection as he pursued a project to replicate Thomas Jefferson's library at Oberlin College where, for several decades, he was head of the Art Department and Director of the Allen Art Museum. Upon his death, the collection went to his grandson, historian Andrew Ward, in whose library it has remained over the past nearly half a century.
This copy was presented to Clarence Ward by historian Robert B. Shaffer, his former student and Oberlin colleague and originally was the property of Charles Stirling whose modified herald appears on his bookplate with the Stirling Clan motto "Gang forward." The only contemporaneous Charles Stirlings of note were a British Vice Admiral (1760–1833) who served in the Napoleonic Wars, harassed American ships during the War of 1812, and would have acquired this volume after his court martial and retirement in 1913. The second and likelier candidate was the Admiral's cousin and son-in-law, Charles Stirling (1791–1867), the enterprising "laird" of Muiravonside, where he acted as his own architect.
Three book plates attached to inside front cover, two of them illustrated. Binding with some wear, front joint cracked for the most part and some light scuffing and staining of covers. Binder's sticker on verso of marbled front endpaper. Starting at title page of volume one. Some foxing of plates and offsetting to facing text pages througout. Binding in overall good, interior in very good condition. Good to very good condition. Item #49042
Price: $1,250.00