MANDAR, (Charles François).   DÉTAILS DE CONSTRUCTION D'UNE MAISON   Donnée Pour L'Instruction De Messieurs Les Élèves De L'école Royale Des Ponts et Chaussées Par M Mandar Ingénieur En Chef, Professeur D'Archite[cture] Année 1818.     &nbspParis: Lithographie des Ponts et [Chausées],   1818.          The rare first edition of this early example of the use of lithography for the publication of architectural drawings. Charles-François Mandar (1757-1844) began his career as a military engineer and joined the corps of the Ponts et Chaussées in 1798; but he was also involved in architecture as early as 1792 (the year in which he designed the "pavillon" on which the designs in this book are based); and in 1818 - the year in which his DÉTAILS DE CONSTRUCTION FIRST appeared - he was Ingénieur en Chef and Professeur d'Architecture at the École Royale des Ponts et Chausées. These plans and details for a country house were published on the presses at the École and were intended solely for the use of his students at the École during the following years. Only 250 copies were printed. The idea of publishing a work in such a small quantity and in such microscopic detail specifically as a teaching device for students would have been out of the question using the graphic techniques of the eighteenth century. The cost of 100 engraved plates would have been prohibitive. However, the invention of lithography at the end of the eighteenth century provided a process by which drawings could be reproduced relatively easily and inexpensively, as the technique involved closely resembled the drawing process itself. Lithography caught on more slowly in France than in Germany or in England; and the first real activity occurred there around 1816-1817 (cf. Twyman, Lithography 1800-1850, pp. 41-57), in the years immediately preceding Mandar's publication in 1818. The École Royale des Ponts et Chausées - as an engineering school interested in technological innovations - was among the first places to have a lithographic press installed (cf. Michael Twyman, Lithography 1800-1850, p. 110). Thus this 1818 edition of Détails de construction d'une maison is amongst the earliest examples - if not the earliest - of the application of lithography to the reproduction of an entire series of architect's drawings. By 1826 the 250 lithographed copies had evidently been exhausted. In that year a new enlarged edition appeared in which all the plates were engraved rather than lithographed. That work was intended for a different and larger audience than the original, offered here, which was produced only for the use of Mandar's students and is much rarer, and more interesting, as a result. OCLC locates only 5 copies (3 in the US) in addition to copies at the Getty and CCA. There are no copies in COPAC and it is not in the British Architectural Library Early Printed Books Catalogue (though the later edition is).   Folio (48 x 31.5 cm); lithographed or etched vignettes of putti flanking classical herme on recto and Greek vase on verso (not present in other copies) + title page lithographed by le Barbier l'Ainé + 103 lithograph plates, of which numbered plates 1 to 100 (2 folding), 2 unnumbered plates at the end with details of various numbered plates, and a final unnumbered plate of the villa in a park setting + lithograph index.            Nineteenth-century green quarter calf (repaired) titled in gilt, marbled boards, edges untrimmed; minor rubbing and wear at edges of boards, repaired section at fore edge of front blank, some pages faintly browned, occasional spot of foxing or surface soiling, and faint stab marks at fore edge of some plates but overall a very good copy. $2,800.00

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