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IDEAS FOR RUSTIC FURNITURE PROPER FOR GARDEN SEATS, SUMMER HOUSES, HERMITAGES, COTTAGES, ETC. I. AND J. TAYLOR. London: I. & J. Taylor, Circa 1790. First edition. 8vo. Contemporary blue wrappers. 25 engraved plates, including the title leaf. The original blue wrappers have been expertly repaired at the spine with the original stitching still in place. Two period ink inscriptions on the frontice/ title page: 'Jas. P. Pritchett 1812' and, as if to suggest an author, there is another ink inscription 'By Halfpenny'. "One of the rarest of eighteenth-century furniture plate books," it was the subject of an article by Morrison Heckscher, "Eighteenth Century Rustic Furniture Designs," (Furniture History, XI, 1975, pages 59-65). Heckscher further says, "there is a consistency about the style of all these pieces. All have a delicate and ordered rusticity--what had been described as a 'regular twiginess.' All of the wooden framing elements are made from what appears to be thin, untrimmed branches. The branches of some pieces are nailed together, but more often they are lashed together with rope. Many of the chair and settee backs are 'woven' out of one or two unnaturally long branches." Looking through these plates, they have an almost antler-like effect. It is easy to imagine a grand hunting lodge being adorned with such furniture. A rare copy with illustrated designs that have been attributed as the work of William Wrighte; although there are no hard facts to substantiate this attribution, the design styles are similar. This is the only eighteenth-century English pattern book devoted entirely to rustic furniture. Plates offer designs for chairs, stools, sofas, tables, looking glasses, and chimney pieces. A nice, unsophisticated, uncut copy. Seller Inventory # ABE-1496890149958
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