Lot 72: REPTON, Humphry (1752-1818). Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening . London: T. Bensley for J. Taylor, 1803.

REPTON, Humphry (1752-1818). Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening. London: T. Bensley for J. Taylor, 1803.

4υo (356 x 290 mm). Engraved frontispiece portrait after S. Shelley, and 27 plates, aquatints and line-engravings, 12 with overslips, one folding, many hand-colored or tinted, a further 11 aquatint and engraved plates in the text, 2 with overslips, vignette on p. 8, woodcut diagrams, one hand-colored on p. 219. (Some occasional pale offsetting.) Modern green half morocco, uncut.

FIRST EDITION of Repton's second treatise, a less scenic work than Sketches and Hints but one reflecting the increasing alignment between landscape and architecture, and the kind of tidying up exercise recommended on a gentleman's estate. "Humphry repton, the British architect, used before/after flaps in some 100 presentations during the early 1800s, both in his books on landscape theory and in pitching proposals to clients. His redesigns could easily be presented without flaps--though without magic--by means of spatial parallelism, by paired images... And, despite the enchantment of flaps, comparisons are usually more effective when the information is adjacent in space rather than stacked in time" (Tufte, Visual Explanations, p.81). Abbey Scenery 390; Tooley 399.