Landmark Books in All Fields
ItemID: #116051
Cost: $1,250.00

Monograph of the William K. Vanderbilt House

Richard Morris Hunt

WITH 60 LARGE FOLIO PLATES OF ARCHITECT RICHARD MORRIS HUNT'S WILLIAM K. VANDERBILT HOUSE

(HUNT, Richard Morris) VAN PELT, John Vredenburgh. A Monograph of the William K. Vanderbilt House. Richard Morris Hunt, Architect. New York: John Vredenburgh Van Pelt, 1925. Large folio (14-1/2 by 19-1/2 inches), original half blue cloth portfolio, plates and text loose as issued, remnants of original cloth ties. $1250.

First edition, with 60 striking large folio black-and-white plates—38 of them photographic—of the plans and details of the William K. Vanderbilt mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York City, designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt.

Richard Morris Hunt was one of the most influential American architects of the 19th century. According to David McCullough, "Hunt was the first American to be admitted to the school of architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts – the finest school of architecture in the world – and the subsequent importance of his influence on the architecture of his own country can hardly be overstated" (McCullough, The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, 12). He was responsible for many of the great Gilded Age mansions of New York and Newport, institutional buildings such as the main wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art , and Biltmore, the largest private house in the United States, in Asheville, North Carolina. The mansion he designed for William K. Vanderbilt on Fifth Avenue, constructed in 1878, was an early example of the French Gothic style in the United States. Demolished one year after this book's publication, the manion is detailed here in 22 plates displaying original plans and designs and 38 photographic plates of its interior and exterior.

Plates and text fine, some wear to original portfolio, the majority of the cloth ties perished. An impressive production documenting an influential building.

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