Beschreibung:

ANDROUET DU CERCEAU, Jacques (1510-1584). Le premier [and second] volume des plus excellents bastiments de France . Paris: for the author, 1576-1579.
ANDROUET DU CERCEAU, Jacques (1510-1584). Le premier [and second] volume des plus excellents bastiments de France . Paris: for the author, 1576-1579. 2 volumes in one, 2° (402 x 292mm). 76 engravings on 64 full sheets in volume I, and 71 engravings on 61 full sheets in volume II. (Some browning, volume I with some dampstaining, some repaired tears including one in the margin of the first title, a few small marginal losses, some creases.) 17th-century vellum, spine lettered in gilt and compartments with gilt ornaments, sides panelled in gilt with a central arabesque, edges gilt (joints splitting, lacking cloth ties, some soiling). Provenance : deleted title signature -- Emily, Marchioness of Lansdowne (bookplate,and her signature, on title, as Countess of Shelburne). FIRST EDITION OF ANDROUET'S MOST IMPORTANT WORK , 'our best source of information for many sixteenth-century houses that have since been altered or destroyed', including the Tuileries and Bury (Anthony Blunt, quoted in RIBA). Some of the most famous Renaissance buildings that survive today are included: the Louvre, Vincennes, Chambord, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Gaillon, Blois, Amboise, Fontainebleau, Chenonceau, Chantilly and Anet. Androuet du Cerceau, who travelled in Italy in the early 1530s, was largely responsible for introducing Italian Renaissance architecture and decoration to the French court. Brun p. 188; Destailleur pp. 26-27; H. von Geymüller, Les Du Cerceau (1887) pp. 202-207, 336-337; Mortimer, Harvard French 23; RIBA 100.