(STIEGLITZ, Chr. L.)   DESCRIPTIONS PITTORESQUES DE JARDINS DU GOUT LE PLUS MODERNE.         Leipzig: Voss et Compagnie,   1802.          This volume describes and illustrates idealized garden plans for two picturesque parks. Although the text is generally attributed to Stieglitz, the garden designs are all the work of Karl August Siegel, a Dresden architect. They are generally in the picturesque and anglo-chinois style that was then fashionable, and include numerous garden buildings and fabriques in Chinese, Turkish, gothic and rustic as well as classical styles. The text which accompanies the engravings, while offering some practical and theoretical observations on garden design, is primarily devoted to lengthy narrative accounts of visits to the two gardens. Given that the gardens themselves were idealized models which did not physically exist, these fictional narratives represent a kind of idealized representation of how the gardens of this period, newly redefined by the naturalistic aesthetic of the Romantic movement, were characteristically viewed and experienced. There were, of course, contemporary precedents for works such as this written as guides for visitors to actual gardens, such as Ermenonville or the Leasowes. Steiglitz's guide, however, was unencumbered by fact or physical reality. Literary and historical associations also played an important role in the gardens of this period, and it is interesting that in Steiglitz's account he also found it necessary to include literary and historical digressions brought on by elements in the imaginary gardens. The work first appeared in German in 1798 under the title GEMÄLDE VON GÄRTEN. This is the first French edition.   8vo (21.6 x 15.6 cm); viii + 124 pp. + 28 engraved plates.   Berlin Cat. 3364          Contemporary full mottled calf, backstrip skillfully restored; mild damp stain in margin of 12 plates, not affecting images. $950.00

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