Recueil Elémentaire d'Architecture. Contenant plusieurs Etudes des Ordres d'Architecture d'après l'opinion des Anciens et le sentiment des Modernes (and) Supplement
Neufforge, Jean-François de
Paris. Chez l'auteur. 1757–1780
An exceptional complete copy of the first edition of Jean-François de Neufforge's chef d'oeuvre including the extensive supplement.
The 'Recueil' includes 600 plates in the main work plus 314 in the supplement and 9 titles and 1 index leaf.
Jean-François de Neufforge was born in Liège, Belgium, and travelled to Paris in 1738 where he studied with Pierre Edme Babel, a woodcarver and engraver of rococo ornament. Neufforge's vocation was clearly for the theoretical and ideal part of architecture. He turned to publications, and engraved to support himself. He conceived the plan for his 'Recueil Elémentaire' in 1755 when he was forty-one. With the encouragement of the Marquis de Marigny and the sanction of the Academy, he embarked on the publication of the 'Recueil', a pattern book reflecting the trends in neoclassical architectural taste as they had developed during the several decades in which it was compiled and published. The work was distributed over a period of twenty-three years in cahiers of six feuilles at one franc per cahier. Some of the engravings were made by François Blondel, but the great majority were by Neufforge himself, presumably to keep expenses down. The vast undertaking eventually ruined the author.
The exhaustive nature of Neufforge's work is pointed up by a listing of its contents: the orders and decoration, houses, gates and interiors, chimney pieces, ceilings, furniture, gardens and garden furniture, facades for palaces, civic buildings and temples, religious furniture, churches, houses and palaces, doors, windows, niches and entablatures, vaulting, stairs, chimneys, roofs, bridges and domes.
The 'Recueil' includes 600 plates in the main work plus 314 in the supplement and 9 titles and 1 index leaf.
Jean-François de Neufforge was born in Liège, Belgium, and travelled to Paris in 1738 where he studied with Pierre Edme Babel, a woodcarver and engraver of rococo ornament. Neufforge's vocation was clearly for the theoretical and ideal part of architecture. He turned to publications, and engraved to support himself. He conceived the plan for his 'Recueil Elémentaire' in 1755 when he was forty-one. With the encouragement of the Marquis de Marigny and the sanction of the Academy, he embarked on the publication of the 'Recueil', a pattern book reflecting the trends in neoclassical architectural taste as they had developed during the several decades in which it was compiled and published. The work was distributed over a period of twenty-three years in cahiers of six feuilles at one franc per cahier. Some of the engravings were made by François Blondel, but the great majority were by Neufforge himself, presumably to keep expenses down. The vast undertaking eventually ruined the author.
The exhaustive nature of Neufforge's work is pointed up by a listing of its contents: the orders and decoration, houses, gates and interiors, chimney pieces, ceilings, furniture, gardens and garden furniture, facades for palaces, civic buildings and temples, religious furniture, churches, houses and palaces, doors, windows, niches and entablatures, vaulting, stairs, chimneys, roofs, bridges and domes.
Folio. (412 x 450 mm). 9 vols. bound in 5. 908 copperplates of elevations, plans, and details for the interiors and exteriors of buildings. Contemporary full mottled calf, banded spines, gilt.
#48920
