Lot 71: HANCARVILLE, Pierre François Hugues d' (1719-1805). Antiquités Etrusques, Grecques et Romaines . Paris: the author [vol. I] and the author and F.A. David [vols II-V], 1785-1788.

HANCARVILLE, Pierre François Hugues d' (1719-1805). Antiquités Etrusques, Grecques et Romaines . Paris: the author [vol. I] and the author and F.A. David [vols II-V], 1785-1788. 5 volumes, 4° (258x 185mm). Hand-coloured engraved additional titles, those to vols II-IV with the engraved numeral 'I' appropriately amended in ink. 361 engraved plates by François Anne David (lacking plate I, 73 but with duplicates of plates II, 65 and III, 60), 321 hand-coloured, most retaining original tissue guards. Woodcut title vignettes, head- and tailpieces. (Occasional light spotting or marginal marking, a few quires lightly browned, lacking dedication leaf and final blanks II, R4 and III, S4.) Contemporary French marbled calf gilt, boards with borders of triple gilt fillets, gilt board-edges and turn-ins, spines gilt in compartments, gilt morocco lettering-pieces in 2, gilt edges, silk markers (extremities lightly rubbed, chipped, and bumped, minor flaking on boards). Second edition, LARGE-PAPER SET. D'Hancarville's work describes and illustrates Sir William Hamilton's first collection of ancient vases, which he had formed with d'Hancarville's assistance as his agent. Prior to the sale of this collection to the British Museum in 1772 for the sum of £8,400, Hamilton published a magnificent record of it as Antiquités Etrusques, Grecques et Romaines, tirées du Cabinet du M. Hamilton (Naples: 1766-1767), which was intended to be both an archaeological work and a stimulus and source for contemporary artists and designers (for example, proofs of the plates were sent to Josiah Wedgwood, whose ceramics were influenced by them). This second edition of the work was published in a less extravagant (and therefore less expensive) form than the first; as Blackmer states, 'David and d'Hancarville have here offered the contents of [the first edition] in a more accessible form, mainly for the use of artists and designers'. Blackmer 847 (lacking 3 plates); Cohen-De Ricci 474; Vinet 1528. (5)

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