The Property of
MISS FRANCES H. JONES
DOWNING, ANDREW JACKSON, American architect & landscape designer. Twelve autograph letters signed ("A.J. Downing") to Robert Donaldson, a patron, Newburgh and Highland Gardens, [New York], 26 December 1840 - 26 July 1847. Together 39 pages, 4to, one letter with signature partially torn away, three letters incorporating plans or architectural renderings (one, a columned doorway, full page). Informative letters from the most influential American landscape designer of the nineteenth century to the proprietor of "Blithewood," a Hudson Valley estate. Downing's first letter thanks Donaldson for praise of "my efforts to improve the taste in Landscape Gardening here," notes various English works on the subject (by Gilpin, Price, Brown and Repton), and explains the difficulties in adopting English models to American estates. Elsewhere, Downing describes estates he has visited, exults that "Landscape gardening bids fair to become a profession in this country," describes a new pump for garden fountains, and, in a letter of 5 June 1843, furnishes designs for a springhouse and a gatehouse at Blithewood: "I have thought the hexagon might be inferior to the octogon, or pentagon..." Sold with a packet of 15 documents relating to Donaldson's purchase of the land which Blithewood occupied. (27)
Details
DOWNING, ANDREW JACKSON, American architect & landscape designer. Twelve autograph letters signed ("A.J. Downing") to Robert Donaldson, a patron, Newburgh and Highland Gardens, [New York], 26 December 1840 - 26 July 1847. Together 39 pages, 4to, one letter with signature partially torn away, three letters incorporating plans or architectural renderings (one, a columned doorway, full page). Informative letters from the most influential American landscape designer of the nineteenth century to the proprietor of "Blithewood," a Hudson Valley estate. Downing's first letter thanks Donaldson for praise of "my efforts to improve the taste in Landscape Gardening here," notes various English works on the subject (by Gilpin, Price, Brown and Repton), and explains the difficulties in adopting English models to American estates. Elsewhere, Downing describes estates he has visited, exults that "Landscape gardening bids fair to become a profession in this country," describes a new pump for garden fountains, and, in a letter of 5 June 1843, furnishes designs for a springhouse and a gatehouse at Blithewood: "I have thought the hexagon might be inferior to the octogon, or pentagon..." Sold with a packet of 15 documents relating to Donaldson's purchase of the land which Blithewood occupied. (27)