Varley, John:

$1,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON PERSPECTIVE, ADAPTED FOR THE STUDY OF THOSE WHO DRAW FROM NATURE, BY WHICH THE USUAL ERROURS MAY BE CORRECTED. First American edition, after the first London edition of 1815, of John Varley's Practical Treatise on Perspective, and "only the second work devoted to perspective issued in the United States" (Miles & Reese). John Varley (1778–1842) was an English watercolor painter and art teacher who published a number of art manuals. A letter from the Baltimore publisher, Fielding Lucas, Jr., to Mathew Carey dated March 16, 1819, in which Lucas mentions this edition, suggests the 1819 date of publication, although Shaw & Shoemaker date it to 1820 (see Schimmelman and Foster). Fielding Lucas, Jr., (1781–1854) was "perhaps the most successful American publisher of 1810–1830" (Reese) and "pioneered the use of color in American book illustration" (Miles & Reese). In 1827, he would go on to publish Lucas' Progressive Drawing Book, the text of which was based on another drawing book by Varley entitled A Treatise on the Principles of Landscape Design; with General Observations and Instructions to Young Artists. While the present work does not feature any of Lucas' color illustrations, it does include three diagrammatic plates on two folding sheets at rear. Most of the text serves to explain and elaborate on the plates, which illustrate aspects of perspective. We find no records of this edition at auction. OCLC locates copies at fifteen institutions across five r

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.