Burnet, John:

$950 · Offered by William Reese Company

PRACTICAL HINTS ON COMPOSITION IN PAINTING. ILLUSTRATED BY EXAMPLES FROM THE GREAT MASTERS OF THE ITALIAN, FLEMISH, AND DUTCH SCHOOLS. The stated first American edition, from the fourth London edition, of Scottish painter John Burnet's Practical Hints on Composition in Painting, first published in London in 1822. The title was the first in a three-part series of "practical hints" by Burnet, with the other two addressing the subjects of light and shade (1826) and color (1827) in painting. The two-page publisher's prospectus at front of the present volume promises that the American edition "will be published in Parts, as it originally appeared in London," but we find no evidence that Parts II and III ever made it to print. This American edition includes a dedication from the publishers to "the president and members of the National Academy of Design...for the generous exertions manifested by them in disseminating a knowledge of the Art of Painting." Founded in New York in 1825, the National Academy of Design promoted "the cultivation and extension of the arts of design" through its twofold program of art instruction and exhibition (Constitution). The dedication is accompanied by a preface from New York painter Henry Inman (1801–1846), best known perhaps for his "involvement in the most extensive project of his career, the publication of Thomas L. McKenney and James Hall's History of the Indian Tribes of North America (1836–1844), for which he painted engraver's copies of Charles

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