DUPUY DU GREZ, Bernard.
Traité sur la peinture pour en apprendre la teorie, & se perfectionner dans la pratique.
Toulouse, Widow of J. Pech, and A. Pech, 1699. 4to. With a woodcut vignette on the title-page, 4 full-page engraved allegorical plates after A. Rivatz, the first dated 1694, and 8 engravings showing perspecive, 2 of which are full-page. Further with large flowered and emblematic woodcut head- and tailpieces. Contemporary calf. [20], 396 pp.
€ 7,500
Rare first edition of this manual on the theory of baroque painting, composition and colours, by Bernard Dupuy du Grez (1639-1720), a celebrated Toulouse scholar. After his education and a Grand Tour in Italy, Dupuy de Grez became a lawyer at the parlement of Toulouse, but soon he abandoned his career for a life devoted to art and science. In 1683, he founded a public drawing school, the Ecole des Baux-Arts at Toulouse, which later, in 1751, became the famous Royal Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. His model was the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris, founded in 1648 to free artists from the hold of the old corporations. Most of Dupuy's written work, including a history of Toulouse, remained in manuscript, but the present manual was published especially for use in his drawing school.
The work consists of four main treatises, each preceeded by an allegorical engraving: (1) Traité sur la peinture. Contenant sa definition, sa division, & sa noblesse (Painting, theory, definition and history, including a comparison between painting and sculpture); (2) Qu'est-ce que le dessein, & des moyens de s'y avancer (The art of drawing, the basic art for many other arts, including the rules and principles of perspective and proportion. This part has a supplement discussing the proportions of the human body, with references to Vitruvius, Dürer, Gauricus, Lomasse, etc., as well as the latest opinions on perspective); (3) Du coloris, en quoy is consiste, & du choix qu'on en peut faire (Colours and the perspective of lights and shadows, also with a supplement added, discussing the practical use of colours in frescos, in working with crayon, or oil paints, in miniatures, etc.); (4) De la composition (Composition of a drawing or painting, with emphasis on perspective, including the teaching of an easy method of perspective). Following this 4th treatise is the Traité d'optique. Pour suplement à la quatrième dissertation sur la composition, illustrated with 8 engravings showing perspective.
The book is very well produced and beautifully illustrated with finely etched plates after Antoine Rivalz (1667-1725), a Toulouse painter and etcher, who in 1726 also founded a school for drawing, inspired by the Ecole des Baux-Arts founded by Duput. The plates are printed in reverse.
In 1972 the book was considered so important that a facsimilé edition was published in Geneva.
Good copy with the engraved coat-of-arms of the Baptist Earl of Gainsborough, dated 1700.- (Some marginal browning and some repairs in the margins). Brunet VI, 9246; Cioranescu, 17e siècle 27820; Cat. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam I, p. 192; Le Blanc III, p. 339, Rivalz 5-8; Dict. biogr. franç. XII, col. 602; Saint-Raymond, 'Un Toulousain critique d'art au XVIIe siècle. Dupuy du Grez et son Traitéde la peinture', in: Mém. Acad. Toulouse (1911), p. 241-78.
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