PMM - Proportions. DÜRER. Les Quatre livres de la proportion des parties & pourtraicts des corps humains & [..]

DÜRER Albrecht. Les Quatre livres de la proportion des parties & pourtraicts des corps humains. 

[Bound with]: 

Institutionum geometricarum libri quatuor, in quibus, lineas, superficies, & solida corpora, ita tractavit.

Arnheim, Jean Janszoon, 1613 & 1605

Two works in a Folio volume. 305x195 mm. Contemporary full colored vellum binding with coat of arms, triple rules framed the covers, on the center a gilt coat of arms of Minim Friars of Paris surmounted by a crown within a written “Caritas”. Leaves (2), 124, with several illustrations which of 4 folded plates; Pp. (8), 185, with several illustration of various size. On inside cover is glued an etching with the portrait of Jean Baptiste Scanarole. On the end paper is glued a colored Ex-Libris ‘De artificiali perspectiva’. Specimen belonging to Thomas Vroom. On the two title pages are handwritten notes indicating ownership of the Minims Convent in Paris, dated 1635. On the title page of the Institutionum is added ‘Frater Ioannes franciscus Niceron’. Traces of wear on the binding, slight browning especially on the margins; a fresh copy.

Two rare works, a copy once owned by Jean-François Nicéron. These are the French editions of two of Dürer's major works expounding his theories on art, proportion, and perspective.

Le Quatre Livres: The third edition of this famous treatise for painters and engravers, in which Dürer attempts to combine mathematical rules with instinctive data on artistic anatomy. It follows the translation by Louis Meigret of Lyon, published in 1557. After demonstrating how to reduce the human body to general patterns, Dürer provides possible interpretations of these models and sets forth his ideas on art; he then examines the proportional relationships of limbs in motion.

Institutionum: This work on geometric institutions is the first of Dürer's writings on the theory of art, in which he explains the application of geometry to drawing and painting and teaches the principles of perspective; these methods are to be applied to architecture, painting, typography, and generally to all ornamental forms. The book is therefore aimed at artists, but also at sculptors, architects, goldsmiths, stonemasons, and other craftsmen. To explain the complex mathematical symbols to German readers, Dürer had to invent many new mathematical terms, and thus also influenced German scientific prose.

This copy has a prestigious provenance, having belonged to the great scientist Jean-François Nicéron, who placed his autograph signature on the title page of the Institutionum.

Jean-François Niceron, 1613–1646, was a French geometer and physicist, known for his research on optics; he was the most rigorous theoretician of perspective in the 17th century.

The manuscript inscription is dated just three years before the first edition of his main treatise, La Perspective Curieuse, and the binding bears the coat of arms of the convent to which he belonged. It was from this copy that Nicero read his Dürer, drawing from the Nuremberg artist and theorist the principles and techniques he would develop in his own work, known above all for the development of anamorphosis.

The copy later became part of the "Thomas Vroom Collection."

Vitry 248. Cfr. PMM 54.