PERRET, Clement

by Clement Perret

£25,000 · Offered by Sokol Books

First edition, third issue with the rare engraved privilege , of this outstanding writing manual, one of the first to be printed from engraved plates. The plates combine art and alphabets, each set of letters is placed within a wonderful ornamental cartouche made of elements of strapwork and grotesque design, with monkeys, sphinxes, masks, putti, and other elements. All the elaborate writing samples are in different fanciful styles such as using mirror writing, or a calligram in the form of four hearts, woven in a single line of text in minute letters. The Exercitatio alphabetica, was not only the first ever to be reproduced entirely by copper engraving, but also the first with examples in seven languages, [including English] all of them written in the appropriate hands. Moreover in this book, the first to be produced in the Low Countries in such a large, oblong size, all plates had lavishly executed borders, designed on an architectural framework on which a variety of objects, human figures, grotesques, animals and so on were depicted. The book was obviously designed for collectors, wealthy connoisseurs and fellow writing-masters. Ton Croiset Van Uchelen. The mysterious writing-master Clemens Perret and his two copy-books. With the exception of Neudörffer s early experiments with etched lettering samples , Perret s book is the first intaglio writing manual (Becker). Its attraction lies not only in Perret s superb calligraphic specimens but in their extraordinary borders, str

• Binding: Hardcover

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