In 1883 Redwood Library received from the estate of Joseph J. Cooke an oblong folio volume of garden designs by Humphry Repton (1752 - 1818) printed 89 years earlier, in 1795. A gem of the graphic arts issued in an edition of 250 copies, Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening is an example of the printer's virtuosity. One hundred thirteen years later it has been joined by a larger, even more sumptuously produced volume. Gilbert S. Kahn, who has served on the Redwood Board of Directors since 1995, recently gave to the Library Humphry Repton's 1808 Designs for the Pavillon at Brighton.

Mr. Kahn's gift is one of the finest single volumes ever presented to Redwood. It is the first edition, or first state - the more valuable and the rarer of the two Brighton Pavillon editions. As with so many illustrated volumes printed before 1840, the plates are hand colored in watercolor. In addition, unusually painstaking and expensive work was lavished on cutting and coloring paper masks, which Repton called "slides," and tabbing or sometimes hinging the masks to the plate. With the mask in place, a view of the present configuration of the landscape is shown. When the mask is pulled away, the improvements Repton was suggesting are seen. Some plates have several masks offering various options for improving the country estate or garden. This early before-and-after presentation was one of Repton's significant contributions to landscape design. During his lifetime, he completed a number of "Red Books," or bound collections of watercolors employing his innovative masks, to interest his clients in adopting his projects. The Library's 1795 Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening is a printed compilation of some of the illustrations from Repton's "Red Books." His reason for making these books is summarized in Sketches: "I confess that the great object of my ambition is, not merely to produce a book of pictures, but to furnish some hints for establishing the fact that true taste in Landscape Gardening, as well as in all the other Polite Arts, is not an accidental effect, operating on the outward senses, but an appeal to the understanding, which is able to compare, to separate, and to combine, the various sources of pleasure derived from external objects, and to trace them to some pre-existing causes in the structure of the human mind."

Humphry Repton is second only to Lancelot Brown (1715-1783) on the roster of 18th-century English landscape designers. Ahead of his time, he did not slavishly follow the predominant taste of the period, with its penchant for wildness and rugged landscapes of mountains and forests. His use of formal motifs close to the building, of garden structures, pools, fountains, and gates, laid the groundwork for the Victorian esthestic in landscape design. His designs for landscapes away from buildings emphasized dramatic vistas and a highly romantic vision of the natural world. The word "picturesque" frequently appears in his writings. The quest for the picturesque dominated much of English art and esthetics in the 18th and 19th centuries. In all, Repton designed over 200 estate and country-house landscapes, and a partial list of his work appears in his Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening.

Designs for the Pavillon at Brighton is a significant book not only representing a masterpiece of the art of printing, but also providing a primary source documenting the taste for the exotic in architecture and landscape, an esthetic movement that had its origins in the mid-18th century and thrived throughout much of the 19th century. The Royal Pavillon was systematically being redesigned and rebuilt by the Prince Regent, the Prince of Wales, at the turn of the 19th century. The style employed by the Prince's architects has been described as "Hindustan" in part, "Chinese" in other parts, "Turkish," or simply "Oriental."

Beginning in 1815, the architect John Nash redesigned the building complex, and it is his work that we see today. Humphry Repton and his two sons, John Adey and George Stanley, were asked by the Prince Regent to redesign the gardens at Brighton, providing the rather bucolic landscape with the Reptons' hallmark vistas. Their plans, using Humphrey's innovative layout, were presented in the volume now at Redwood. As can be seen from the colorful plates, the Repton family suggested any and all manner of Oriental-styled pools, summer houses, arbors, fences, gates, and the like. The prince appreciated and approved the designs; for lack of financial backing, however, the Reptons' landscaping project was never realized. Today the gardens at the Royal Pavillon look more like the Reptons' "before" view than the "after."

Redwood is pleased to have a number of treasures documenting the history of garden and landscape design. The gifts from Joseph J. Cooke and Gilbert S. Kahn have joined related publications given in the past by such generous benefactors as Charles Bird King and Guy Fairfax Cary. Their gifts and many others over the last 250 years have created a little-known, but significant, collection of books on garden design. In the first half of 1997 the collection was exhibited for the first time in its entirety at Redwood Library and Athenæum.