Sydney Smirke, Architect

When recataloguing our rare books, we often come across annotations, inscriptions or bookplates that reveal the books' previous owners. Our copy of Examples of ornamental sculpture in architecture: drawn from the originals of bronze, marble and terra cotta in Greece, Asia Minor and Italy by Lewis Vulliamy (1791-1871) is no exception.
Published around 1821, the volume includes several engraved plates of sculptural decoration, designed to illustrated their potential application to architecture. The GSA Library's copy includes the bookplate of architect Sydney Smirke, who is best known for the Round Reading Room in the British Museum. This 1857 neo-classical domed building now forms part of the Great Court, but was originally designed as the reading room of the British Library and was used as such until 1997. It's probably very appropriate that an architect so famed for a library should find his own book, some 150 years later, in a small art and design library in Glasgow!