11. Becker, Wilhelm Gottlieb.
Neue Garten und Landschafts-Gebaüde. Leipzig: Voss und Cie., 179899.
Not now owned by the University.
Sowerby, who had no opportunity to examine a copy, describes the book
as a folio volume with four parts and thirty-four plates. She gives the
date of purchase by Jefferson for his own library as June 21, 1805, its
price as $17.00, and the cost of its binding at $2.00.
Although references to Becker are few, Sowerby says he was a
German landscape artist and antiquarian.
Jefferson, in a study of garden pavilions with notes (Kimball, Fig.
164 and N-182), cites the Becker work: "Chinese model. wood Becker
pl. 10-a." The Chinese designs in the book were drawn by the architect
Schäffer and included detailed explanations.
Jefferson's French title, "Becker. Plans d'architecture," is not on
the book, but that this was the book ordered for the University, in the
section on "Architecture" of the want list, seems certain from Jefferson's
use of the same title for the copy of the same work that he sold to
Congress. No record of its receipt at the library during his lifetime
exists.
U. Va.
M
Sowerby 4223
