Books and Manuscripts

Le Roy, (Julien David)
Les ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grece...
Paris: Chez H.L. Guerin & L.F. Delatour, Jean-Luc Nyon/Amsterdam: Jean Neaulme, 1758. Two parts in one volume. First edition. Folio, 22 1/4 x 16 5/8 in. (565 x 422 mm). xiv, 56, (ii), vi, 28 pp. Illustrated with 60 engraved plates by Le Bas, Littret de Montigny, Neufforge, and Patte after drawings by Le Roy. Full contemporary brown calf, red morocco spine label, stamped in gilt, joints and extremities expertly restored, boards rubbed and scratched, chipping to spine; all edges gilt; marbled endpapers; spotting to title-page and prelims; light to moderate foxing to plates; several plates in second part toned. Blackmer 1009; Atabey 709; Brunet III, 1003

A first edition of this important work that introduced Western Europe to the architecture of classical Athens. For many years this work served as the authoritative text on the subject, and influenced the burgeoning Greek revival style. Le Roy visited Greece in 1754 and succeeded in publishing this first edition four years before the publication of James Stuart and Nicholas Revett's acclaimed The Antiquities of Athens (1762, see lot 151). As Le Roy admits in the preface, technical accuracy was not his sole concern and he included accounts of his travels to enliven the text, hoping to "affect the spectator more vividly" and imbue them with "all the admiration by which one is stricken when looking at the Monuments themselves." An influential text, a second edition appeared in 1770, while an English edition appeared in 1759, and a German edition in 1782.