Elements of perspective; containing the nature of light and colours, and the theory and practice of perspective, in regard to lines, surfaces, and solids, with its application to architecture. To which are added rules for painting in transparent water colours.
London.
G. Cawthorn, 1799.
First edition.
8vo.
[3], vi-xv, [1], 132pp. Without half-title. With 18 engraved folding plates. Contemporary gilt-tooled tree-calf, contrasting red morocco lettering-piece. Lightly rubbed, upper joint starting. Printer's waste pastedowns sprung (with some loss), early inked ownership inscription to title, title page working loose, plates browned, scattered spotting.
The first London edition of a primer on the mathematical principles of perspective by master of the Edinburgh Drawing Academy, John Wood.
Initially published at Edinburgh in 1797, the treatise - intended when conceived as a manual for Wood's own students - presents, in exhaustive detail, the geometry behind perspective unlike, 'many elementary books published with the same intention...designed for persons unacquainted with mathematics'. The Monthly Review were unimpressed: 'We must confess that this work does not much please us: it admits subjects which have no connection with perspective, and its discussion of them is not sufficiently full and satisfactory to justify their introduction. As a speculative perspective treatise, it might have been made much more full; and as a practical book it is now much too long.'
ESTC records copies at just six locations (BL, California, Du Pont, Huntington, LCP, and UoL).
Initially published at Edinburgh in 1797, the treatise - intended when conceived as a manual for Wood's own students - presents, in exhaustive detail, the geometry behind perspective unlike, 'many elementary books published with the same intention...designed for persons unacquainted with mathematics'. The Monthly Review were unimpressed: 'We must confess that this work does not much please us: it admits subjects which have no connection with perspective, and its discussion of them is not sufficiently full and satisfactory to justify their introduction. As a speculative perspective treatise, it might have been made much more full; and as a practical book it is now much too long.'
ESTC records copies at just six locations (BL, California, Du Pont, Huntington, LCP, and UoL).
ESTC T113885.
£ 500.00
Antiquates Ref: 23343
