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MIDDLETON, Charles (1756-1817?). Picturesque and Architectural Views for Cottage, Farm Houses, and Country Villas. London: Edward Jeffery, 1793. 2° (445 x 277mm). 21 etched plates with aquatint shading, of which 10 double-page with full or partial hand-colouring, the remaining one double-page and 10 single-page plates uncoloured. (Occasional light spotting and browning, plate VI cropped at left-hand margin into plate mark with loss of a couple of imprint letters.) 19th-century green-stained half vellum, burgundy morocco gilt spine label, marbled endpapers, marbled edges (extremities lightly rubbed, spine label scuffed).
RARE FIRST EDITION WITH HAND-COLOURED PLATES. Published in the same year as Sir John Soane's Sketches in Architecture in which Soane stated that he was concerned to work 'on a smaller scale, consisting of cottages' (introduction), the present work demonstrates how the 'picturesque' 'was now about to invade architecture' (Kruft, A History of Architectural Theory, 1994, p.256). This movement was underpinned by the principles of classical architecture, so that it was possible for a rustic façade to conceal an Adam-style dining room. Consequently 'This taste, which Middleton represented, was quite widespread in England' (Dobai Die Kunstliteratur des Klassizismus und der Romantik in England, 1977, III p.667). Abbey Life 37; Berlin Kat. I 2303; RIBA 2119.
RARE FIRST EDITION WITH HAND-COLOURED PLATES. Published in the same year as Sir John Soane's Sketches in Architecture in which Soane stated that he was concerned to work 'on a smaller scale, consisting of cottages' (introduction), the present work demonstrates how the 'picturesque' 'was now about to invade architecture' (Kruft, A History of Architectural Theory, 1994, p.256). This movement was underpinned by the principles of classical architecture, so that it was possible for a rustic façade to conceal an Adam-style dining room. Consequently 'This taste, which Middleton represented, was quite widespread in England' (Dobai Die Kunstliteratur des Klassizismus und der Romantik in England, 1977, III p.667). Abbey Life 37; Berlin Kat. I 2303; RIBA 2119.