[Travel & Exploration] Stuart, James, and Nicholas Revett The Antiquities of Athens. Measured and Delineated

Stuart, James, and Nicholas Revett
The Antiquities of Athens. Measured and Delineated
London: John Haberkorn (first volume), John Nichols (second and third volumes), and T. Bensley for J. Taylor (fourth volume), 1762, 1787, 1794, and 1816. In four volumes (of an eventual five, without the Supplement volume issued in 1830). First editions. Folio, 21 x 14 1/4 in. (533 x 362 mm). (iv), x, 52, (2); (ii), iv, viii, 46; xviii, xv, (i), 64, (2); (ii), xxxi, (i), 44 pp. Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece portrait of James Stuart in second volume and Nicholas Revett in fourth volume, engraved vignette on each title-page, 317 engraved plates (including large hand-colored engraved folding map of Greece in third volume, and four folding plates and four double-page plates), 30 engraved head-pieces, 29 engraved tail-pieces, and two in-text engravings. Full contemporary brown calf, decoratively stamped in blind and in gilt, first volume rebacked to style, front and rear boards of other volumes detached, scattered rubbing and wear to all volumes; marbled edges; matching marbled endpapers; light to moderate foxing to plates in all volumes, largely confined to margins, but increasing in heaviness in third and fourth volumes; title-page foxed in third volume; offsetting on frontispieces; foxing to frontispiece of Revett; tear in bottom fold of map of Attica in third volume; first volume in brown cloth fall-down-back box, other volumes in archival paper fall-down-back boxes. From the library of English Liberal politician Thomas William Evans, 1st Baronet (1821-92) and with his armorial book-plate on front paste-down of each volume. Blackmer 1617; Fowler 340; Bentley & Nurmi 409; Bentley, Blake Books 500

First edition of the first comprehensive and accurate survey of the classical ruins in Athens, considered “the source book for the later Greek revival in England.” (Fowler), and including four engravings by a young William Blake (all found in the third volume, Chap. I, Plates XXI-XXIV, signed “Blake, Sculpt”). Described by British architectural historian Sir John Summerson as "one of the three most important architectural travel books of the century," Stuart and Revett traveled to Athens in 1751 at the instigation of the Society of Dilettanti, where Stuart executed the measured drawings, and Revett the topographical views.