DA VINCI'S IMPORTANT TREATISE OF PAINTING, SCARCE ILLUSTRATED FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, 1721

DA VINCI, Leonardo. A Treatise of Painting… Translated from the Original Italian, And Adorn'd with a Great Number of Cuts. To Which Is Prefix'd, the Author's Life. London: J. Senex and W. Taylor, 1721. Octavo, contemporary full brown calf sympathetically rebacked and recornered, raised bands, burgundy morocco spine label. $12,500.

First edition in English of Da Vinci's treatise on "the force of light and shadow, the management of the pencil, and the mixture of colors, with the knowledge of perspective," illustrated with engraved frontispiece portrait and 35 finely engraved plates (four folding).

"In painting Leonardo had an enormous influence… His writings on painting were influential too; they were first published from his scattered notes as the Trattato della Pittura in 1651, but were well known before then… Leonardo is one of the very few artists whose reputation has from his own times onward constantly remained at the highest level… a reflection of his extraordinary force of intellect, and his virtually single-handed creation of the idea of the artist as genius" (Chilvers & Osborne, 286). With handsome woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces. With three-page publisher's catalogue. Bound without half title. See Brunet V, 1258; Graesse V, 327. 18th-century owner signatures (one on title page), gift inscription.

Plates and text clean, contemporary calf with some wear.