R. de Piles
 - Abrégé de la Vie des Peintres - 1699

First edition.

Roger de Piles
Abbreviated life of the painters, with reflections on their works, and a Treatise of the perfect painter, on the knowledge of drawings, and on the usefulness of engravings
Paris, Chez François Muguet, premier Imprimeur du Roy, 1699.

In-12 (mm 160 × 100 ca. bound).
Pp. (20), 540, (2). Missing the copperplate frontispiece (engraved by Simonneau after a drawing by Antoine Coypel).

Contemporary binding in full marbled calf, spine with raised bands and gilt ornaments and rules, loose, boards and edges somewhat worn, as befits a copy of more than three centuries. Interior overall fresh, with the typical stains of the period and some damp marks, but the paper solid and the text clearly legible.

The work opens with the famous Treatise of the perfect painter, a real theoretical manifesto in which de Piles defines the essential qualities of the ideal painter (genius, study of nature, drawing, color, composition, expression, etc.) and provides practical precepts on the knowledge of drawings and the usefulness of engravings.

Follow the biographical Abbreviations divided by schools:
• Origins of painting and Greek painters
• Romans and Florentines (Cimabue, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, etc.)
• Venetians (Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese…)
• Lombards (Correggio, Carracci, Guido Reni…)
• Germans and Flemings (Dürer, Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt…)
• French (Poussin, Le Brun, etc.)

Each life is accompanied by keen critical reflections on the works, which makes the work not a mere repertory, but a tool of aesthetic judgment.

Roger de Piles (1635-1709), diplomat, collector and theorist, is one of the central figures of the French art debate at the end of the 17th century. With this volume – published anonymously – he systematizes for the first time in France the lives of painters by national schools and introduces a modern critical approach, favoring color (“coloris”) over drawing and providing concrete criteria for the appreciation of works.

The work enjoyed enormous success and was reprinted several times (the second edition of 1715 is already revised and enlarged), but the first edition of 1699 remains very rare on the market, especially in decent condition. Copies complete with the frontispiece are even more sought after; the absence of this plate, while noticeable, does not prejudge the rarity and interest of the volume, which remains a fundamental classic of European art literature.

A genuine copy of the very rare original edition, of great interest to collectors of art and of old books on the subject.