James Stuart and Nicholas Revett | The Antiquities of Athens, 1762-1816, first edition, 4 volumes

James Stuart and Nicholas Revett 

The Antiquities of Athens. Measured and Delineated. London: John Haberkorn [volumes 2 and 3: John Nichols, volume 4: T. Bensley, for J. Taylor], 1762–1816 

First edition, 4 volumes, folio (520 x 350 mm.), etched title vignettes, 2 engraved portraits, 317 engraved plates, plans, and maps (comprising 316 of the 317 plates, maps, and plans called for in BAL RIBA including the hand-coloured folding map of Greece, lacking Vol.II. Chap.V. Pl.V "The flank of the Propyléa, with the transverse section of the temple of Victory", but extra-illustrated with Jacques Carrey’s "Metopes from the South Side of the Parthenon" (captioned as "ATHENS. Vol.II. Chap.I. Pl.XXIX"), some plates misbound or mislabeled (see catalogue note), head- and tail-pieces and engraved illustrations, general table of contents and list of plates at end of first volume, errata leaf after dedication in first volume and at end of vols 3 and 4, rebacked and recornered preserving nineteenth-century marbled boards, new endpapers, housed in modern black cloth cases, lacking ‘Vol.II. Chap.V. Pl.V’ called for in BAL RIBA, some spotting and creasing

The first accurate survey of the classical buildings of Athens, through the influence of which the Greek style was established in English architecture. John Summerson has described it as “one of the three most important architectural travel books of the century”. Stuart and Revett’s visit to Athens was made in 1751 at the instigation of the Society of Dilettanti. Stuart was responsible for the measured drawings, Revett for the topographical views. 

Some of the illustrations are bound out of order in the present copy. The folding map of "Greece, Archipelago and Part of Anadoli" and the "Plan of the Antiquities of Athens" called for in volume 3 are here bound in the first volume. The plate labelled "Chap: V. Pl: I" here bound at the start of volume 2, chapter 5 belongs to volume 1, chapter 5, and the plate mislabeled "Vol.II. Chap.III. Pl.IV" belongs to the volume 2, chapter 5. An additional plate appears in volume 2. According to the volume's introduction, chapter 1, plate 29 is "not to be found", and although it "may be seen in Montfaucon’s Antiquities [...] it is there so incorrectly represented, that a copy of it would be a disgrace to this work". The present volume does in fact include a plate captioned "ATHENS. Vol.II. Chap.I. Pl.XXIX" and entitled "Metopes from the South side of the Parthenon. Destroyed in 1687", after Jacques Carrey (1649-1726). Carrey was responsible for a series of drawings of the Parthenon made in 1674, and Volume IV (compiled after the deaths of both Stuart and Revett) also contains engravings of "Pediments of the Parthenon, as they were in 1683" from drawings attributed to him.   

PROVENANCE:

W.H. Dixon, The Beeches, Edgbaston; John Marsh, Burnt Tree, Dudley; Mr Ernest Vaughan, The Field House, Worcestershire, later of Green Royde, Pedmore, Stourbridge: bookplates preserved to front pastedowns

LITERATURE:

BAL RIBA 3183–3186; Blackmer 1617; Cicognara 2713