University of Virginia Library

117. Steiglitz, Christian Ludwig.

PLANS ET DESSINS / TIRÉS DE LA / BELLE ARCHITECTURE
/ OU / REPRESENTATIONS / D'EDIFICES EXECUTÉS
OU PROJETTÉS / EN 115 PLANCHES / AVEC / LES EXPLICATIONS
NÉCESSAIRES / LE TOUT ACCOMPAGNÉ / D'UN /
TRAITÉ ABRÉGÉ / SUR / LE BEAU / DANS L'ARCHITECTURE
/ PAR / Dr. C. L. STIEGLITZ. / LEIPZIG / CHEZ VOSS
ET COMPAGNIE / MOSCOU /CHEZ RISS ET SAUCET / 1800.

Folio. Engraved frontispiece (1 leaf); title page (1 leaf); dedication (1
leaf); note (1 leaf); preface (1 leaf); text ([1]-14); 113 engraved plates
with descriptions inserted.

Note: There is some doubt that the Stieglitz is the proper identification
of Jefferson's order for the "Portfeuille des artistes, ou dessins de chateaux,
etc. (4to) Leips. 1800." for the University. In Jefferson's own
memorandum on garden temples (N-182), he cites among various
sources for a Gothic temple Plate XXX from the "Leipsic Portefeuille."
Plate XXX in Stieglitz shows a residence whose central feature is an
Ionic portico screening an apsidal entrance space. The only Gothic
structures in the work are two pavilions shown on Plates LXXIII and
LXXIV.

On the other hand, if one accepts the Stieglitz as the "Leipsic Portefeuille,"
there is an interesting, but undocumented, connection with Jefferson's
architectural work, as pointed out below. Until further information
is available it seems worthwhile to investigate the Stieglitz here.

The engravers were Gottlieb Böttger (fl.1796), who worked at
Leipzig; Philibert Boutrois (fl.1775-1814), who worked in Paris; Coquet
(see No. 40); Johann-Adolph Darnsteds, or Darnstadt (1769-1844),
who was in Dresden by 1784, a member of the academy at Dresden by
1811, and who later worked in Berlin, Milan, and Copenhagen; Delettre;
Gustave-Georg Endner (1754-1824), who was born at Nuremberg and
died near Leipzig; Carl Frosch (b.1771), who worked in Leipzig;
C. Frussotte (see No. 95); Antoine-Joseph Gaitte (see No. 40); Grünter;
Heluis, or Helvis (fl.1799), who worked in Paris; Hullmann; JeanBaptiste
Liénard (1750-1807), French; Claude-Alexandre Moisy (1763ca.1827),
French; Piquet; Pierre Nicolas Ransonnette (see No. 40);
Jean-Baptiste Réville (see No. 40); Johann Friederich Schröter (17701836),
a native of Leipzig and engraver to Leipzig University after 1813;
and van Mael.

Christian Ludwig Stieglitz (1756-1836), a jurist and an architectural
historian, was educated at Leipzig. He published nineteen works
from 1787 until his death.

He says of architecture and the beautiful in architecture:

This edition is the first of this beautiful neoclassic work of plates
of designs for buildings, chiefly country houses. There were two later
Paris editions, in 1801 and 1809. It seems to have been an international
production with its Leipzig and Paris editions, its French and German
engravers, its text in French, and its agents in Leipzig and Moscow.

Plate XIII shows a plan of a country house which has oval rooms
fitted within a circular space at one end of the building (see Plate
CXXVI). The house is described as follows: "La magnificence et la
simplicité se trouvent réunies dans le bâtiment réprésenté ici. Les avantcorps
des deux façades sont magnifiques tandis qu'une modeste simplicité
caractérise les parties reculées." The layout of this house bears a
striking resemblance to the oval rooms fitted into the circular plan of the
Rotunda of the University of Virginia by Jefferson on his drawing for the
Rotunda's first floor, a drawing dated about March 29, 1821, or before
(see Plate CXXVII). The Stieglitz plan may have been a remembered
prototype for the Rotunda plan, if, indeed, the volume has been correctly
identified.

Kimball (p. 98) says Jefferson bought his copy of the "Portfeuille
des artistes, ou dessins de chateaux etc." between 1800 and 1805.
Sowerby pinpoints the date to June 21, 1805, quoting the correspondence
between Jefferson and his bookseller Reibelt, and notes its cost as $14.40
with a binding cost of $2.50.

That Jefferson made his desideratum note for the University in the
section on "Architecture" of the want list from a recollection of the copy
he sold to Congress seems certain. That copy, however, has not survived.
Hilliard never found a copy for the University, and Sowerby despaired
of identifying the book. The University's recent acquisition of the

Stieglitz lessens the doubt that this is the volume Jefferson specificied,
although he described it as quarto instead of folio. The library's present
copy is the gift of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation.

U. Va.?

*NA2600.S69.1800

M?

Sowerby 4222