JONES, Inigo.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Designs, Consisting of Plans and Elevations for Publick and Private Buildings. First edition of this monumental work. "Oddly enough, more influential than any single building depicted in it were its plates of doors, windows, niches, etc. These plates seem to have had a formative effect upon Gibbs's Book of Architecture (1728) and from that point on became a standard feature of 18th-century pattern books" (Harris, p. 251).Lord Burlington (1694-1753) acquired a collection of drawings of designs by Inigo Jones in 1720 with a view to publishing them. The project, however, did not begin in earnest until he apppinted William Kent (1685-1748) as editor. Two years later, Kent was appointed Master Carpenter in the Office of Works. Their efforts proved "a significant feature in Burlington's campaign to establish a new standard of taste in England; the first, as it were, in a series of visual exemplars" (Millard, p. 136). Eager to promote public works, Kent devoted the first volume chiefly to designs for a royal palace at Whitehall, though the scheme was in fact the work of Jones's assistant, John Webb. The volume also includes details for doors and windows. Comprising mostly domestic buildings, the second volume includes designs for the Queen's House at Greenwich, a palace on the Thames at Richmond, a dormitory for Westminster School, the portico of Old St Paul's, and Palladio's San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice.

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