A scarce early technical handbook teaching linear and aerial perspective to craftsmen and working trades, complete with eleven instructional folding lithographs by Charles Motte and preserved in its original printed wrappers.

Bibliographic Details

Author: YSABEAU (Alexandre, French physician and writer).
Title: Perspective pratique, comprenant la perspective linéaire et aérienne, et les notions du dessin linéaire à l'usage des ouvriers.
Place of Publication: Paris.
Publisher: Malher et Compagnie, Librairie Scientifique et Industrielle.
Date / Edition: 1827. First edition thus.
Pagination: 164 pp.
Illustrations: Eleven folding lithographic plates at the rear by Charles Motte.
Binding: Original blue printed paper wrappers.
Series: Half-title with the additional Belgian distribution imprint: Bibliothèque industrielle. Sciences / Bruxelles, Chez Berthoud, Librairie.
Size: 12mo (18.1 × 10.2 cm).

Condition

Very Good to Good. Original printed wrappers with some edge wear and minor chipping at the head and foot of the spine. Rear wrapper a little unevenly trimmed. Minor split to paper along upper edge of front wrap.

A few plates are minimally mis-folded. One plate has a small chip to a blank corner, not affecting the image. Light scattered foxing, chiefly affecting the final leaves and several of the plates. All eleven folding lithographs are present and generally well preserved.

Please ask if you require a more detailed condition report, or view gallery images closely.

Description

A scarce and appealing early nineteenth-century manual devoted to the practical teaching of linear and aerial perspective, written expressly for artisans, tradesmen and working draughtsmen rather than for academically trained artists alone.

Ysabeau presents perspective as a practical working skill, explaining how depth, proportion, recession and spatial relationships could be represented accurately upon a flat surface. The book also introduces the principles of linear drawing, making it relevant to craftsmen engaged in building, decoration, manufacture, engineering and the applied arts.

The intended readership is made explicit in the title through the phrase à l'usage des ouvriers—“for the use of workers”. This places the volume within the expanding movement for technical and industrial education in post-Napoleonic France, when publishers increasingly produced accessible manuals intended to improve the practical skills of mechanics, builders, designers and artisans.

The distinction between linear perspective and aerial perspective is central to the work. Linear perspective concerns the mathematical representation of receding forms through converging lines and vanishing points, while aerial perspective explains how distance may be suggested through changes in tone, clarity and visual intensity. Together, these principles formed an essential foundation for architectural drawing, landscape representation and industrial design.

The volume is especially desirable for its complete suite of eleven folding lithographic plates by the noted Parisian lithographer Charles Motte. These diagrams provide practical demonstrations of geometrical construction, sight lines, planes, vanishing points and spatial arrangement, allowing readers to follow the text through visual examples.

Motte was an important figure in the early development of French lithographic printing, and his contribution gives the book additional interest within the history of technical illustration. Lithography was still a comparatively new process in France during the 1820s, and its ability to reproduce precise drawn lines made it especially well suited to educational and scientific diagrams.

The folding format enabled each plate to contain considerably more information than the small size of the volume would otherwise allow. Such plates were intended to be opened beside the corresponding lessons, turning the book into a compact working manual for practical study.

The half-title bears the separate imprint of the Bibliothèque industrielle for distribution through Berthoud in Brussels, indicating that the work was intended for circulation beyond France among readers interested in science, manufacture and technical instruction.

Ysabeau is better known for writings in other fields, making this pedagogical treatise an unusual part of his output. Its direct language and practical orientation distinguish it from the more elaborate perspective manuals written for professional painters and architects.

Copies are institutionally scarce, with only a small number recorded in major library catalogues. Survival in the original printed blue wrappers is particularly desirable, since technical manuals of this kind were frequently rebound, heavily used or discarded once their immediate practical purpose had passed.

Notes

A rare early manual of perspective and industrial drawing, combining accessible instruction for working artisans with a complete suite of eleven folding lithographic plates by Charles Motte.

Particularly desirable for collectors of perspective, technical drawing, French lithography, industrial education, architecture, artisan manuals, Charles Motte and nineteenth-century applied science.