Item #5863 Details of Antient Timber Houses of the 15th and 16th Centuries [bound with] Furniture of the Fifteenth Century [bound with] Designs for Gold and Silversmiths [bound with] Designs for Iron and Brass Work. Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin.

Details of Antient Timber Houses of the 15th and 16th Centuries [bound with] Furniture of the Fifteenth Century [bound with] Designs for Gold and Silversmiths [bound with] Designs for Iron and Brass Work.

1836. London: Ackermann & Co., 1836-1837.

Four volumes in one. 4to, later utilitarian tan buckram, gilt-lettered red morocco backstrip label, gilt edges Respectively: pictorial title-page with lettering colored by hand and 21 plates; pictorial title-page and 24 plates with captions printed in red; pictorial title-page and 27 plates, title and captions printed in red; and pictorial title-page and 26 plates (numbered 2-27); the total number of etched plates, including title-pages, is 102. All plates printed on rectos only and with tissue guards. Publisher's catalogue of J. Britton, dated 1837, and small broadside advertisement for another of Pugin's works bound in at rear. Early ownership inscription on flyleaf. backstrip label chipped; binding darkened and unsightly; a few stains and marginal tears; sound withal.

§ First editions in a later binding, retaining the original marbled free endpapers and all edges gilt. The talents and energy of Augustus Welby Pugin are well represented in this collection of his works on medieval architecture and design. Pugin worked so hard as an architect, artist, writer, and promoter of Roman Catholic religion and Gothic style, which he held to be inseparably united, that he suffered a complete mental collapse and died at the age of forty. The final plate of the first work in this volume is an allegorical depiction of a Gothic-style church being demolished while its precious statues, woodwork, and decorations are burned in the street in front of two hideous new buildings. The caption reads: "The End, shewing the fate which will shortly befall the few remains of antient carpentry that have yet escaped the hand of the destroyer!" The ownership inscription reads, "George Holmes / Rufford Old Hall / Lancashire." The location is appropriate, as Rufford Old Hall is regarded as one of the treasures of 16th-century residences in England, with a magnificent Great Hall of Tudor hammer-beam construction, very good collections of arms and decorative arts, and spacious gardens. Item #5863

Price: $600.00

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