[ARCHITECTURE]. COURTONNE, Jean (1671-1739). Traité de la Perspective Pratique, avec des Remarques sur l’Architecture. Paris: Jacques Vincent, 1725.
Folio (362 x 229 mm). Half-title, engraved frontispiece, 33 engraved plates (32 folding). (Few plates repaired near gutter, some with dampstaining at bottom margin, small hole at lower margin of frontis, else fine). Full contemporary calf, spine in 7 compartments with raised bands, gilt lettering-piece in second, others completely gilt (ends repairs, corners rubbed, light surface wear to covers). Provenance: Charles Mewès (1858-1914), bookplate and two ink stamps (stamps on title and frontis). Mewès was a French architect and interior designer, who was responsible for the Ritz hotels on both sides of The Channel.
FIRST EDITION. In this treatise, the architect and entrepreneur Jean Courtonne reproduced his two major works, the hotel Noimoutiers (1720) and, more majestic, the Matignon hotel built for Christian Louis de Montmorency-Luxembourg (1722); it also describes imaginary buildings. Courtonne wrote as an architect for architects and lamented that “perspective has all but vanished from the Sacred Hierarchy of the Fine Arts” (Kemp, p. 272).