Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening. Collected from designs and observations now in the possession of the different noblemen and gentlemen, for whose use they were originally made. The whole tending to establish fixed principles in the art of laying out ground by REPTON, Humphry (1752-1818) - 1794

London: printed by W. Bulmer & Co., sold by J. & J. Boydell and G. Nicol, 1794. Oblong folio. (10 1/4 x 14 inches). 10 hand-coloured aquatints engravings (1 folding, 3 double-page), each with one or more overslips, and 6 aquatint plates printed in black with a single tint added (4 with one or more overslips), 2 wood-engraved illustrations, 1 wood-engraved tailpiece, bound without the half title. Expertly bound to style in 18th-century half russia over contemporary marbled paper-covered boards, the flat spine divided into six compartments by fillets and a Greek-key roll, red morocco lettering-piece in the second compartment, the others alternately decorated with a large centrally-placed vase and flower spray tool, with foliate cornerpieces and a large centrally-placed goblet and birds tool with foliate cornerpieces, gilt edges Provenance: early crowned 'C' monogram at foot of title The first of Repton's three great works on landscape gardening. Humphry Repton was the main successor to Lancelot "Capability" Brown as an improver of grounds for the English gentry in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. He was particularly noted for his Red Books. These were produced for each individual client and were made up from a manuscript description of his proposed improvements bound with Repton's own watercolour drawings of the grounds, with his proposed alterations displayed on an overlay. The present work is made up to a large degree of extracts from the Red Books of 57 houses which Repton had been called upon to improve. A list of these houses, their location and their owners is given in a valuable two-page list towards the front of this volume. The work is broken down into various chapters: Concerning Buildings, Concerning Water, Concerning Approaches, etc. In each chapter Repton selects the relevant section from each Red Book that is helpful to the point he is trying to make. In addition to the specific ideas that he is trying to convey, Repton also enters the fray on behalf of "Capability" Brown. The theoreticians, Payne Knight and Uvedale Price, had both written disparagingly of Brown's work and Repton here answers their arguments, a lengthy letter that Repton wrote to Price in July 1794 is quoted in full. The work ends with an intriguing list of sixteen "Sources of pleasure in Landscape Gardening" and William Wyndham's letter to Repton in support of his theories: "Places are not to be laid out with a view to their appearance in a picture, but to their uses, and the enjoyment of them in real life, and their conformity to those purposes is that which constitutes their true beauty: with this view gravel walks, and neat mown lawns ... are in perfect good taste, and infinitely more conformable to the principles which form the basis of our pleasure in these instances, than the docks and thistles, and litter and disorder, that may make a much better figure in a picture." The plates echo the watercolours with which Repton invariably illustrated the Red Books. He makes extensive use of movable flaps or slides - generally to explain the effect he is trying to create by showing the property before his improvements (with the flap down) and after, with the flaps lifted. The quality of the aquatints is exceptional, and the folding view of the Duke of Portland's house Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire is particularly interesting as it apparently shows Repton and his assistants at work on a survey of the estate. Abbey Scenery 388; Archer 280.1; ESTC t073696; Henrey III, 1269; RIBA III, 405; Tooley 400.