“INGENIOUS AND TASTEFUL”: PRICE’S ESSAY ON THE PICTURESQUE

PRICE, Uvedale. An Essay on the Picturesque, as Compared with the Sublime and the Beautiful; and, on the Use of Studying Pictures, for the Purpose of Improving Real Landscape. WITH: A Letter to H. Repton… Intended as a Supplement to the Essay on the Picturesque. London; Hereford: J. Robson / D. Walker, 1796, 1798, 1795. Together, three volumes. Octavo, early 20th-century three-quarter red morocco, raised bands, marbled boards and endpapers, top edges gilt. $1400.

Expanded and best edition of Price’s engaging and practical study of the picturesque and the sublime in landscape and garden design (enlarged second edition of Volume I; first editions of Volumes II and III), handsomely bound.

“While Sir Uvedale Price was not the first to write about the picturesque and its relation to the fine and useful arts, he was the concept’s most discerning, sensible, evocative, and influential explicator” (Marcia Allentuck). Price’s Essays sparked the ‘Picturesque Controversy’ of the 1790s, as he argued “in favor of natural and picturesque beauty,” and against the more invasive theories and practices of Capability Brown, Nathaniel Kent, and Humphry Repton. Price’s writings had a considerable influence on early 19th-century architecture, garden design and aesthetics, and was credited as a source of inspiration for the Townscape Movement of the mid-20th century. “In this edition of an ingenious and tasteful work, many parts are entirely new modeled” (Lowndes). Volume I first appeared in 1794. Lowndes, 1962.

Fine condition, handsomely bound.