Sammelband of Four Works: Rural Architecture in the Chinese Taste; Country Gentleman's Pocket Companion, and Builder's Assistant; Rural Architecture in the Gothick Taste; Useful Architecture in Twenty-One New Designs

London: Printed for and Sold by Robert Sayer, Map and Printseller at the Golden Buck opposite Fetter, Lane Fleet Street, 1750. Four works in one. 8vo. (8 x 5 inches). [Chinese Taste:] Second edition. 8, 8, 8, [2] 2. 28 pp. Engraved title and 60 engraved plates, 11 folding. [Country Gentleman's]: First edition. [4] 3-14. 18 pp. 25 engraved plates. Advertisement. [Gothick Taste]: First edition. [2] 3-8. 8 pp. 16 engraved plates. [Useful Architecture]: First edition. [iv] 1-22 25-79 [1]. 86 pp. Advertisement. 20 engraved plates, all folding. Pagination gap as issued. Contemporary calf roll-tooled in gilt, five raised bands forming six compartments on spine, title in gilt on red morocco lettering-piece in second compartment, laid paper with all edges flecked red

Four historically significant architectural pattern books by Halfpenny in a flawless sammelband; these designs epitomize mid-eighteenth-century English country architecture.

"Halfpenny's pattern books for chinoiserie in the form of garden furniture, temples, bridges, and other follies were the first of their kind and were enormously successful." [ODNB] William Halfpenny was an English architect in the first half of the 18th century, whose earliest known building was the Holy Church Trinity in Leeds (1723). But Halfpenny's main importance lies in his prolific writing and publishing of architectural pattern books. Halfpenny's writing focused on the practical information a builder or carpenter would need, but also positioned the works to "gentleman draughtsmen" intent on designing their own houses. Halfpenny's influential books often served as the blueprint for early American houses and their detailing, including Mount Clare in Baltimore County, Maryland, and the Chase-Lloyd House in Annapolis, Maryland. The present sammelband is a remarkable collection of these seminal aesthetic works. The engravings by Richard Parr after Halfpenny are beautifully presented and assiduously described in the four volumes. [Chinese Taste]: Halfpenny's important four-part work of Chinoiserie designs. "Halfpenny's was the first collection of Chinese architectural designs to be published. His work apparently sold well, for over the next two years, he and his son John issued three additional collections of designs, brought together under a new title in 1752 as Rural Architecture in the Chinese Taste. The plates include designs for garden seats, alcoves, temples, and the many other subjects specified on the title pages." [Archer] [Country Gentleman's]: This volume provides illustrations, plans, descriptions, and elevations for thirty-two designs of garden pavilions, summer buildings, and pleasure boats in the Chinoiserie and Gothick aesthetics, along with the estimated prices for their construction. [Gothick Taste]: A sequel to the earlier Rural Architecture in the Chinese Taste, published in line with the popular association of the Chinese and Gothick styles as similar capricious novelties. "Halfpenny inverted the Renaissance hierarchy of architectural genres, suggesting that smaller buildings, rather than cathedrals or palaces, epitomized architectural details. The text consists of keys for the plans, specifications, and cost estimates. In several plans and elevations there is an attractive clarity to the design, achieved through use of simple geometric forms such as squares, rectangles, and triangles." [Archer] [Useful Architecture]: Originally issued under the title Six New Designs for Convenient Farm Houses in 1750. This 1752 edition was the first under the Useful Architecture title. Editions in 1755 and 1760 followed. The conception and execution of this publication is similar to A New and Compleat System of Architecture by Halfpenny. This edition attests to the popularity of this farmhouse manual, which was used by gentlemen building tenant farms on their country estates.

Archer 131.1, 136.1, 134.2, 137.1. Berlin Catalog 2282. Colvin, p.379. ESTC N23353, T79273, T79274. Harris, BABW 288, 311, 312, 317. ODNB. Park, List 21, 27, 30. RIBA 1440. Schimmelman 40. Wiebenson III-D-26.