Bound in red calf, gold tooled, rebacked, with George III’s large crown finishing tool in centre.

Kirby was born in Suffolk and initially worked there as a painter and topographer. With the encouragement of William Hogarth he became a specialist in perspective - particularly for architecture - and in 1754 published (by subscription) his first manual on the art of perspective, based on the work of the mathematician Brook Taylor (1685-1731). Shortly before the book’s publication Kirby was made an honorary member of the St Martin’s Lane Academy, where he lectured on perspective. Through Bute’s influence, in 1756 he was appointed ‘Drawing Master’ to the future George III, in which capacity he gave lessons in both landscape and architectural perspective. Following his accession, the King continued to support Kirby and his son, William. As Joint Clerks of the Works at Richmond and Kew Palaces from 1761 they were close to both the King and to Chambers, for whose publication on Kew the elder Kirby supplied three designs. Later in the same decade the King funded William’s extensive architectural studies in Italy.

This is the second edition of Kirby’s The Perspective of Architecture. When it was first issued in 1761 it was made clear that the publication had been ‘Begun by command of His Present Majesty, when Prince of Wales, by Joshua Kirby, Designer in Perspective to His Majesty’. The 1761 edition was dedicated to the King, who had evidently funded the publication. In addition to a celebrated frontispiece by Hogarth, it included two plates made on the basis of designs supplied by the King himself. George III’s close involvement with the publication is further indicated by the text of his Architectural Treatise (in the Royal Archives, reference GEO/ADD/32/1742-1760), which is the equivalent of a first draft of Kirby’s Description and Use of a New Instrument called the Architectonic Sector, incorporated into the 1761 publication.

The 1765 edition (shown here) indicates that the author was by now ‘Designer in perspective to their Majesties’: Queen Charlotte had evidently also begun to take lessons with Kirby: her ‘architectural protractor’, inscribed by Kirby and dated 1765, is in the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford. However, ‘this more perfect Edition of my Book’ was dedicated to the Earl of Bute. Kirby divided his work into two parts, bound in a single volume, containing an introduction to the use of perspective and an explanation of the practice of perspective. The displayed opening falls within chapter III of part II, concerning the rules of perspective ‘more particularly applied to Common Practice’. The diagrams and figures provide explanations for the text. Of the eight figures shown here, explanations of figures 4 (cylindrical or round objects) and 5 (a double cross), with parts of 3 (adjustments of perspective scale) and 6 (placement of a house in a picture) can be found on the facing page.

Catalogue entry adapted from George III & Queen Charlotte: Patronage, Collecting and Court Taste, London, 2004.