JONES, INIGO. 1573-1652.

Designs of Inigo Jones consisting of Plans and Elevations for Public and Private Buildings. London: William Kent, 1727.

Designs of Inigo Jones consisting of Plans and Elevations for Public and Private Buildings. London: William Kent, 1727.
2 volumes in 1. Folio (452 x 280 mm). Engraved portrait, vignettes on titles, 97 plates, numbered 1-73 and 1-63 (24 double-page and 5 folding) by Hulsbergh, Fourdrinier, Herisset and Cole, engraved head- and tail-pieces after William Kent, subscribers' list, lacking allegorical frontispiece and vol I half-title, engraved folding perspective view of Whitehall Palace from the 1770 edition inserted as frontispiece. Period-style half speckled calf and marbled boards, red morocco spine label, plate folds split and reinforced with tape, 3 plates detached at folds, chipping and small tears at margins, toning and occasional light dampstaining and foxing. Custom cloth archival box.
Provenance: Avery Library (perforated stamps, blindstamps to plates throughout, ink stamps on dedication leaf); purchased from Argosy, New York.

FIRST EDITION. "The Designs of Inigo Jones is an impressive and important book. Yet oddly enough more influential than any single building depicted in it were its plates of doors, windows, niches, etc. These plates seem to have had a formative effect upon Gibbs's Book of Architecture (1728) and from that point on became a standard feature of eighteenth-century pattern books" (Harris). Fowler 162; Harris 385; Millard, British 34.