Lot 118: REPTON, Humphry (1752-1818). Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening . London: W. Bulmer and Co., for J. & J. Boydell, [1795].

REPTON, Humphry (1752-1818). Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening. London: W. Bulmer and Co., for J. & J. Boydell, [1795].

2° (342 x 255mm). Half-title. 16 aquatint plates, some of these double-page, of which 10 hand-coloured and 10 with overslips, wood-engraved tail-piece. (Occasional faint spotting, short neat tear in folding plates.) Contemporary diced russia, gilt spine, marbled edges (spine lightly sunned, minor scuffing).

FIRST EDITION OF A GROUND-BREAKING BOOK ON LANDSCAPE GARDENING, illustrated with cleverly effective aquatint plates with moveable overslips which demonstrate the transformative potential of garden design. Repton was the first to adopt the term 'Landscape Gardening', explaining in his introduction that 'the art can only be advanced and perfected by the united powers of the landscape painter and the practical gardener. The former must conceive a plan, which the latter may be able to execute... yet the luxuriant imagination of the painter must be subjected to the gardener's practical knowledge in painting, digging, and moving earth.' Although Abbey states that a few copies are known with a title-page dated 1794, RIBA argues convincingly for a publication date of 1795. Abbey Scenery 388; RIBA 2735; Tooley 210.