The stones of Venice
John Ruskin's three-volume study of Venetian Gothic architecture, published in London by Smith, Elder and Co. from 1851 for British readers of architecture and art criticism. The plates are Ruskin's own measured drawings: numbered arrays of cornice and base profiles rendered as flat grey silhouettes, sectional studies of capitals and abaci, and shaded pencil studies of carved leaf ornament, useful as outline shapes, profile libraries and foliate line work.
