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Details
WOOD, Robert (1717-1771). The Ruins of Balbec, Otherwise Heliopolis in Coelosyria. London: 1757. Broadsheet 2° (545 x 365 mm). 46 engraved plates (10 folding). (Some browning and spotting, plate 42 with small marginal tear.) 19th-century quarter calf, spine lettered in gilt (extremities rubbed). Provenance: John Duntze (bookplate) -- Edward Chatterton-Orpen (bookplate).
FIRST EDITION. Wood, accompanied by James Dawkins, John Bouverie and the Italian artist and architect Giovanni Battista Borra, travelled extensively in the Levant, reaching the relatively unvisited sites of Palmyra and Balbec in 1751. He published The Ruins of Palmyra in 1753, and The Ruins of Balbec four years later. 'Both publications on these unfamiliar sites were important architectural source books' (Blackmer). The engraved plates are by Fourdrinier and Major after Giovanni Battista Borra. Berlin Kat. 1887; Blackmer 1835; Cohen-de Ricci 916; Fowler 444.
FIRST EDITION. Wood, accompanied by James Dawkins, John Bouverie and the Italian artist and architect Giovanni Battista Borra, travelled extensively in the Levant, reaching the relatively unvisited sites of Palmyra and Balbec in 1751. He published The Ruins of Palmyra in 1753, and The Ruins of Balbec four years later. 'Both publications on these unfamiliar sites were important architectural source books' (Blackmer). The engraved plates are by Fourdrinier and Major after Giovanni Battista Borra. Berlin Kat. 1887; Blackmer 1835; Cohen-de Ricci 916; Fowler 444.