Anon. Architectural Plan, Basilica of Saint Clement, Rome

Architectural Illustrations 1920s

This drawing forms part of an interesting collection of architectural works that we have for sale. The pictures cover a range of Western architectural styles, from Egyptian, Roman and Greek, Anglo-Saxon, Gothic and Medieval, through the English 17th-century to 1920s Arts & Crafts and Art Deco.

The drawings are executed with great freehand precision and cover various architectural drawing types—including plans, elevations and perspective sections—as well as focusing on individual ornament designs. Their breadth and competence suggests that these are the original artwork for illustration in a publication on architecture. Some of the drawings are close to the illustrations in the seminal architectural reference book 'A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method' by Sir Banister Fletcher, a single volume which contains around 3,500 illustrations. There have been twenty editions of the book published over the last 120 years, and it is possible the present drawings are by a contributing illustrator. Fletcher's tome, first published in 1896, is an ambitious compendium in which the illustrations form an integral part of the book's encyclopedic mission—and original drawings such as these from the early 20th century are a part of that history.