LE CLERC, Sébastian. Pratique de la Geometrie sur la papier et sur le terrain. [8], 139, [9] pp. With engraved frontispiece and 82 engravings within the text, executed after designs by Le Clerc. 12mo., 128 x 84 mm, bound in contemporary mottled calf, gilt French fillet borders on covers, spine compartments gilt, edges stained red. Paris: Thomas Jolly, 1669.

First Edition of this important and influential treatise in a contemporary binding. Le Clerc wrote this book as a geometry primer expressly for artisans, painters, sculptors and architects involved in design.

Sébastien Le Clerc (1637-1714), one of the greatest and most prolific illustrators in France during the age of the Baroque, has been credited with perfecting this vignette form. Each of the eighty-two plates in this work consists of a geometrical design placed above a charming vignette of a landscape or genre scene. These engravings are extremely fine and have often been included in anthologies on the illustrated book as one of the highlights of seventeenth-century creative illustration. Binding rubbed at corners.

Rare. RLIN search shows copies in two U.S. institutions.

Vagnetti EIIIb60. Brunet III, 915. Berlin Catalog 4720.