Beschreibung:

ANDROUET DU CERCEAU, Jacques (1510-1584). Le Premier Volume des plus excellents Bastiments de France. [Bound with:] -- Le Second Volume Paris: for the author, 1607. 2° (425 x 315mm). Vol. I: 77 copper etchings on 64 double-page plates, woodcut initials and head-piece; vol. II: 72 copper etchings on 61 double-page plates, woodcut initials and head- and tail-pieces. (Text and plates mounted on guards, title page of vol. I dust soiled with closed tears to fore-edge, occasional light damp-stain to margins.) Early 20th-century morocco-backed marbled boards, spine lettered in gilt, all edges red (extremities rubbed, corners bumped). Provenance : T. Willoughby (early signature and shelfmark to title-page).
ANDROUET DU CERCEAU, Jacques (1510-1584). Le Premier Volume des plus excellents Bastiments de France. [Bound with:] -- Le Second Volume Paris: for the author, 1607. 2° (425 x 315mm). Vol. I: 77 copper etchings on 64 double-page plates, woodcut initials and head-piece; vol. II: 72 copper etchings on 61 double-page plates, woodcut initials and head- and tail-pieces. (Text and plates mounted on guards, title page of vol. I dust soiled with closed tears to fore-edge, occasional light damp-stain to margins.) Early 20th-century morocco-backed marbled boards, spine lettered in gilt, all edges red (extremities rubbed, corners bumped). Provenance : T. Willoughby (early signature and shelfmark to title-page). Second editions of Androuet du Cerceau's most celebrated work, first published in 1576 and 1579, and dedicated to Catherine de Medici. The magnificent elevations, perspectives and architectural details of the thirty principal châteaux of France are 'our best source of information for many sixteenth-century houses that have since been altered or destroyed' (Anthony Blunt). Both volumes conform with the collations given for the copies held by the R.I.B.A. Fowler p.20; RIBA 101; Millard French , 8; cf. RIBA 100.