DA VINCI, Leonardo.

A Treatise of Painting.

"Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen": Rare First Edition in English of Leonardo Da Vinci's A Treatise of Painting

London: Printed for J. Senex; and W. Taylor, 1721.

$9,800.00

Out of Stock Item Number: RRB-144142

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Rare first edition in English of da Vinci's classic work on painting. Octavo, bound in full calf, gilt titles and tooling to the spine, front and rear panels, raised bands, marbled endpapers, title page printed in red and black, illustrated with engraved frontispiece portrait facing title, thirty-one full page plates, and three folding (thirty-five in total), final two leaves of publisher's ads present after text. In very good condition, bookplate to the front pastedown. First editions are rare.

“Leonardo's writings and notes long remained in manuscript. Shortly after his death an industrious compiler brought together those passages from his posthumous papers dealing with painting and combined them into a Treatise of Painting (Trattato della pittura); but this important manuscript, which also preserves much that is no longer to be found in Leonardo's own notes, was only edited and published in the 17th century in France" (E.H. Gombrich, The Literature of Art).