[Houses and a church (Buildings Erected or Proposed to be Built in Virginia"). Explanation of title page vignette]" – Vintage Photo Print
![[Houses and a church (Buildings Erected or Proposed to be Built in Virginia"). Explanation of title page vignette]", [between 1795 and 1799] — historic drawing](https://images.jameslantos.com/img/23/230a0188aca8-L.webp)
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
A window into the past: [Houses and a church (Buildings Erected or Proposed to be Built in Virginia"). Explanation of title page vignette]", preserved in this historic drawing. The original is held by the Library of Congress, so what you hang is a true record of its time.
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[Houses and a church (Buildings Erected or Proposed to be Built in Virginia"). Explanation of title page vignette]"
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This ink drawing is a title-page vignette, a small picture meant to introduce a set of architectural designs rather than a finished building. Its inscription says it was made during the author's residence in Virginia from 1795 to 1799, when Benjamin Henry Latrobe was working in the state. The line about "building castles in the air" suggests the scene is a playful image of imagined houses and a church, much like the proposed structures the book describes. Latrobe, a British-trained architect, was helping shape early American public architecture in Richmond at the time, and the vignette reflects the period's interest in classical forms.
| Created / published | [between 1795 and 1799] |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 drawing : ink on paper. |
| Genre | and my fancy was kept employed in building castles in the air |
| Notes | Inscription: Explanation of the Vignette in the Titlepage. During my residence in Virginia from 1795 to 1799 |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 1,536 × 879 px · prints to 5 × 3 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-115072 |
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