CHAMBERS, William.   DISSERTATION SUR LE JARDINAGE DE L'ORIENT.   Ouvrage traduit de l'Anglais, avec plusieurs additions fournies par l'Auteur.     &nbspLondres:   1772.          Bound with: TAN CHET-QUA. DISCOURS SERVANT D'EXPLICATION, PAR TAN CHET-QUA DE QUANG-CHEOU-FOU, GENTILHOMME; Comme aussi Miaaf, Tra, Cghmw & Attq; Ci-Devant Athrhtpow: Dans lequel Les Principes établis dans la Dissertation Précédente se trouvent éclaircis & appliqué a la pratique. Londres: 1773. This French translation of the Dissertation with the additional "Discourse" by Chet-qua (Chambers, himself) was one of the most important English exportations of the second half of the 18th century into Continental Europe, strongly influencing the development of the natural, picturesque, and, also, Anglo-Chinois garden there. It was the French translation of the work which was sent to foreign dignitaries and those interested in new garden styles in Sweden, France and elsewhere. Chambers, the Swedish-born son of a Scottish merchant, received his architectural training in Paris and Rome; after becoming instructor in architecture to the future King of England, upon his arrival in London, he became the most influential English architect of the mid-eighteenth century, with much of his early fame the result of his buildings in the "Chinese" style, most notably at Kew. His knowledge of Chinese buildings evidently derived from his early visits to Canton in the employ of the Swedish East India Company (his ties with Sweden remained strong throughout his career resulting eventually in his appointment as Knight of the Order of the Polar Star). "To judge from his later publications, during his stays in Canton, he made sketches and measured drawings of buildings, as well as of furniture and household utensils, whereas the material available to him for the study of gardens was very slight. He himself writes later that he saw only a few small private gardens at Canton." (Siren, CHINA AND GARDENS OF EUROPE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, p.65) This underscores the perception that the DISSERTATION utilized the notion of Chinese gardens as a vehicle for discussing an improved garden art; it was not intended as an accurate description. The Chinese gardens he describes are in fact a fantastic invention (though influenced by accounts of Attiret) offered as a contrasting ideal to the gardens of Capability Brown and followers, which are attacked forcefully. His arguments against the "banality" of Brown's landscapes, however, transcend mere rivalry and bring forth a cogent attack against gardens designed in slavish imitation of nature, and in favor of gardens where the roles of art, artifice and, even, amusement, are affirmed. Additionally, he makes a strong argument for the professional, including horticultural, training of the garden artist. His imaginary "Oriental" gardens incorporated three distinct features - the Pleasing, the Horrid, and the Enchanted - and are more closely connected with Burke's theories of the Sublime and the Beautiful than anything Chinese. The garden features used in Chamber's imaginary Chinese gardens to invoke the "Horrid," for example, included gibbets, artificial volcanoes, mechanical earthquakes and the like. The account of these features was not meant to be accepted literally (though some did), but were rather the polemic expressions of very novel and prophetic ideas on garden design; ideas which in many ways anticipated those of the Picturesque movement over two decades later. "The appendix (Of TAN CHET QUA) was intended to make the work more useful as a practical guide to the laying out of gardens; it was written with an eye to conditions actually obtainable in England and on the Continent. No small part of this "Discourse" is devoted to enthusiastic descriptions of English landscapes." (Siren, p. 78) Thus, wearing the mask of this Chinese garden artist, Chambers evades the argument between Continental classicism and English naturalism and poses a "foreign" interpretation stressing the application of art, artifice and variety to nature.   4to (28 x 19 cm);   Ganay 89; Henrey 551.          Contemporary full calf with older repairs, gilt stamped and decorated spine with gilt lettered leather title piece, cracks along outer hinges, but binding secure; marbled end papers, older engraved monogrammed bookplate; title page and final page browned in margins; front free blank showing old damp stain; one page contains a tiny older hole touching but not obscuring a few letters. A good copy. $1,200.00

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