Maison royale des orphelins Stuart, James (1713--1788)
[Antiquities of Athens. Volumes 1--4]
The · antiqvities · of · Athens· measvred · and · delineated by · James · Stvart · F·R·S· and · Nicholas · Revett · painters · and · architects· Volvme · the · first· (-- fovrth).
London (Place), printed by John Haberkorn,, 1762. (1787. 1794. 1816.)
4 vols ; 54.0 cm. (2°)
I: [10], x, 52, [2] p., [1], VI, VIII, XIX, XXVI, XI [i.e. 71] pl. (1 fold.) : engr. illus.
II: [2], iv, viii, 46 p., etch. frontis. port., engr. map, I, XXXI [i.e. 30], XX, II, VI, XIII [i.e. 72] pl. : engr. illus.
III: xviii, xxv, [1], 29, [1], 35--43, [1], 47--64, [2] p., [4] engr. maps (2 fold.), XXIV, III, X, IV, XI, IV, III, I, XIII, VI, II, I [i.e. 82] pl. (1 fold.) : engr. illus.
IV: [2], xxxi, [1], 44 p., engr. frontis. port., [1], XIV, X, X, XXXIV, XI, VII[i.e. 87] pl. : engr. illus.

Imprint varies. The second and third volumes have imprint: London: printed by John Nichols, 1787 (1794); the fourth volume has imprint: London: printed by T. Bensley, for J. Taylor, 1816. Page numbers 31-34, 45-46 are omitted in vol. III. but the signatures are complete. With an unpaginated leaf of errata at the end of vol. I and a final unpaginated leaf of 'Errata And Additional Observations' in vol. III, the latter contributed by Revett. The portrait in volume II (sometimes found in vol. I as here, probably indicating later issues) is of Stuart, that in vol. IV is of Revett. There were substantial delays in publication of the later volumes; the second volume was completed after Stuart's death in 1788 by William Newton, and the third by Willey Reveley after Newton's death in 1790. The fourth volume appears to have been conceived by the publisher Josiah Taylor who had obtained a large collection of Stuart's papers and drawings, and was edited by Joseph Woods. A supplementary volume edited by William Kinnard was published in 1830 and is catalogued separately (q.v.). A notebook dating from Soane's time as a student at the Royal Academy (Soane Case 140) shows that he had access to the first volume before a copy was on the shelves of the Royal Academy library, suggesting the young architect may have borrowed it from his employer Henry Holland some time after March 1772. See Margaret Richardson and MaryAnne Stevens (eds.), John Soane architect: master of space and light, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts (London 1999), cat. no. 8. Fowler (pp. 272--3) notes two settings of the list of subscribers in vol. I, distinguished by a number of changes or corrections in the spelling of the names, one represented by the Fowler copy and one by the Johns Hopkins University Library copy; both are represented in the two copies of this volume in the Soane Museum (see copy notes). For a detailed bibliographical description and account of the history and background of the work, see notes to the BAL catalogue entries for each volume; see also Eileen Harris and Nicholas Savage, English architectural books and writers 1556--1785 (Cambridge 1990), pp. 4389--448; and the discussion by Eileen Harris in National Gallery (Washington), The Mark J. Millard Architectural Collection, vol. II (Washington D.C. 1998), pp. 302--311. BAL, Early printed books, nos. 3183--3186; Millard II, 81; Harris and Savage 857; Fowler Cat. 340; ESTC t22194.



Copy Notes Copy 1: Imperfect; wanting pl. XXIV in chapter 1 of vol. III. The portrait of Stuart, dated 1789 and belonging to vol. II, is misbound in vol. I. In this copy the list of subscribers in vol. I is the variant found in the Johns Hopkins copy, with the spellings 'Sir James Burrowes', 'Sir Everand Faulkener', 'William Maun Godschal', etc. Volumes I--III are inscribed by Soane in pencil with subject headings in the margins and labels derived from the text on the plates of architectural subjects. Volume IV was bought from Josiah Taylor for 7 guineas on 23 April 1816. (Archives 16/12/69).
Copy 2: Volume I only. In this copy the list of subscribers in vol. I is the variant found in the Johns Hopkins copy, with the spellings 'Sir James Burrows', 'Sir Everard Faulkener', 'William Mann Godschal', etc. and the final errata leaf is printed on a thinner paper, cut down to quarto dimensions and tipped onto the verso of the double-page general view of Athens at the end of the preliminaries (compare to Millard copy). Bought for £3 17s. 0d at the sale of Adam's library, Christie's, 21 May 1818 (q.v.; also, Priv. Corr. XVI.E.3.11), lot 139, and described in the sale catalogue as a 'superb copy ... presented to Mr. Adam by the Author', though there is no evidence in the book to support this, nor is it likely considering the rivalry between the two architects. In his The architecture of Robert and James Adam 1758--1794 (London 1922; reprinted Woodbridge 1984), vol. 2, appendix C (p. 332), A.T. Bolton lists Soane as the purchaser also of lot 140 'Stuart's Athens, vol. I, boards', presumably on the basis of the price £3 pencilled against it in the annotated copy of the Christie's sale catalogue in the Soane Museum (q.v.). However, in the copy of the sale catalogue at the Victoria and Albert Museum reproduced in facsimile in David Watkin (ed.), Sale catalogues of libraries of eminent persons. Vol. 4, Architects (London 1972), pp. 188-9, the buyer of lot 140 is given as 'Gaudrey'.

Binding Copy 1: C19th quarter green morocco, green calf boards, roll-tooled gilt foliate guilloche borders, gilt-lettered spine-title in double-ruled compartment with anthemion ornaments at head and tail, bird ornament at the head of the spines, marbled edges and endpapers. Bound as a five-volume set with the supplementary vol. V (q.v.). Two volumes of 'Stewarts Athens imperial folio calf sup extra joints &c.', probably vol. IV and the supplementary volume to match the binding of vols. I--III which use a different bird tool at the head of the spine (an eagle, replaced by a dove in the later volumes), were bound by Edwin Hutchinson for £2 10s. 0d. each, 3 November 1829 and 1 February 1830. (Archives 7/10/19, 7/14/36).
Copy 2: C18th red morocco, gilt-tooled anthemion borders, the upper and lower covers with gilt-tooled laurel wreath in a circular anthemion border, gilt-tooled spine with rosettes in S-scrolled foliage. Stuart designed a special binding for the Antiquities which has in the centre of each cover a gilt-tooled laurel wreath enclosing an applied gilt circular medallion of Phidias's Parthenon Athena, adapted from a vignette in the corner of his engraved plan of Athens (vol. II, p. v), the whole contained in a circular frame of gilt-tooled anthemion and bell flowers. The outer borders of the covers are decorated with gilt-tooled bead and anthemion ornaments. Unlike the three known copies of Stuart's Antiquities of Athens in this binding (British Library, National Library of Scotland and J.P. Getty III), all of which have minor variations, the Soane copy does not have the applied central medallion. See H. Nixon, 'English Bookbindings LV: A binding designed by James Stuart, 1762', The Book Collector XIV (1965), p. 538; Hugh Pagan Cat. 14 (1992), pp. 46--8, BAL no. 3183, pp. 1995--6. There are close similarities between this binding and the binding of Adam's copy of Le Roy's Ruines, also bought by Soane (q.v., copy 2); see Iain Gordon Brown, 'With an uncommon splendour: the bindings of Robert Adam's "Ruins of Spalatro"', Apollo (Jan. 1993), pp. 6--11.

Reference Number 3385

Additional Names Hutchinson, Edwin; Adam, Robert (1728--1792) - Collections; Josiah Taylor; Revett, Nicholas (1720--1804) - Library