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Raisonnement sur la perspective, pour en faciliter l'usage aux artistes. Dédié aux mêmes by Ennemond Alexandre Petitot (1727-1801); J.B. Jourdan [editor] - , an XI [1802]

by Ennemond Alexandre Petitot (1727-1801); J.B. Jourdan [editor]

Raisonnement sur la perspective, pour en faciliter l'usage aux artistes. Dédié aux mêmes by Ennemond Alexandre Petitot (1727-1801); J.B. Jourdan [editor] - , an XI [1802]

Raisonnement sur la perspective, pour en faciliter l'usage aux artistes. Dédié aux mêmes

by Ennemond Alexandre Petitot (1727-1801); J.B. Jourdan [editor]

  • Used

Rare French Republican edition of Petitot's artists' manual

Ennemond Alexandre Petitot (1727-1801); J.B. Jourdan [editor].

Raisonnement sur la perspective, pour en faciliter l'usage aux artistes. Dédié aux mêmes.

Paris, Cn. Jourdan, printed by J.M. Eberhart, an XI [1802].

4°. [4], 12 pp text, an engraved title-page and 9 full-page engraved plates on separate leafs, on wove paper.

Later half calf with red sides and blue endpapers.

Unusual second edition of Petitot's 1758 artists' manual for perspective drawing, edited and published by "J.B. Jourdan": "graveur et editeur de l'ouvrage". Possibly this Jourdan was the important, highly ranked French commander Jean-Baptiste Jourdan (1762-1833), who ended his career as Maréchal d'Empire under Napoleon and was active at Paris around the time of publication of the present edition. On the title-page it says "Cn. Jourdan", but the preliminaries are signed "J.B. Jourdan". Perhaps "Cn." stands for colonel, his rank at that time. The CERL Thesaurus does not list a J.B. or Cn. Jourdan active around 1802. Petitot had passed shortly before, in 1801. Jourdan engraved new plates for his edition, closely modeled after Pierre-Jacques Gaultier's plates in the first edition of 1758. The plates in the present second edition are numbered 3, 4, 5, 6, 6bis, 8, 9 fig. VII, 10 fig. VIII. Despite this strange numbering they are complete as they correspond with the 1758 edition. Furthermore Jourdan wrote the preliminaries and published the work himself. He had it printed by J.M. Eberhart at the "rue et maison des Mathurins-S.-Jacques" in Paris. Jourdan motivates the production of this second as follows: "several artists who wanted to have [this book] could not find it anywhere ... I obtained from a friend of my family, who was a pupil of Petitot, the only copy that remained to him ... several followers of this famous man have expressed for it to be reprinted and this convinced me to do so ...". The first edition was bilingual in French and Italian but the present second edition is in French only. Petitot was a French architect who moved to Rome and eventually became famous for his work in Parma. He published several illustrated works, of which the present manual is the rarest of all, and even more so the here described second edition.

Condition: minor spotting on a couple pages, otherwise in very good condition.

Reference: Ornamentstichsammlung 4736 (first edition); Vagnetti E IV b 40 (first edition). WorldCat: OCLC 457578947 should refer to this 1802 edition but in fact directs to the 1758 edition in libraries.

  • Bookseller ARTEM NL (NL)
  • Format/Binding Later half calf with red sides and blue endpapers
  • Book Condition Used
  • Quantity Available 1
  • Publisher Cn. Jourdan, printed by J.M. Eberhart
  • Place of Publication Paris
  • Date Published , an XI [1802]
  • Pages [4], 12 pp; 9 ll.
  • Size
  • Keywords Art manual
  • Size