Essai sur la théorie de la peinture
Essay on the theory of painting
Essai sur l'art de critiquer
Essay on the whole art of criticism
Description de divers fameux tableaux
Account of some of the statues
Richardson, in his Preface to Part I names the translator as A. Rutgers.
The title-page vignette in volumes I and III is signed as invented and drawn by G. F. L. Debrie and engraved by Cl. Duflos in 1728.
References
See note on J. Richardson, Works (1773).
Summary Note
The first volume contains Un Essai sur la théorie de la peinture (a translation of An essay on the theory of painting, 1715), with a new Preface by Richardson père. The second contains, Un Essai sur l'art de critiquer, en fait de peinture, & un discours sur la sience d'un connoisseur (An essay on the whole art of criticism as it relates to painting and an argument in behalf of the science of the connoisseur, 1719). The third (divided into two parts with continous pagination) contains the Description de divers fameux tableaux, desseins, statues, bustes, bas-reliefs &c. qui se trouvent en Italie (An account of some of the statues, bas-reliefs, drawings and pictures in Italy, 1722), with Un discours préliminaire sur le beau idéal by L. H. ten Kate.
Ten Kate's short treatise complements Richardson's chapter on the sublime, and links this conception of an 'unaccountable something' to the earlier concepts of 'grace' and the 'je ne sais quoi'. It was itself translated into English as a separate pamphlet, in 1732.
Provenance
Presented by Jonathan Richardson the younger, June 1769 (RAA CM I, 32).
Copy Note
Volume I is inscribed in ink on the title-page, 'Given by' in front of (in a different hand), 'Jonat. Richardson. Queen's Sq.'; volume III is inscribed in ink on page [iii] and on the divisional title-page of the second part, 'Given by Jonan: Richardson Esq'. A preliminary blank leaf in vol. I has a long inscription in ink in French.
Binding Note
Vols. I-II and III [part one]: mid 20th-century half calf, marbled-papered boards, by 'Ex-Libris'; vol. III ['Seconde partie']: contemporary mottled calf, rebacked in 1990.
Subject
Painting - Sculpture - Connoisseurship - Theory
Paintings, European - Paintings, Italian - Sculpture - Statues - Italy - History
Treatises - Art criticism - Great Britain - Netherlands - 18th century
Treatises - Translations into French - Translations from English - Netherlands - 18th century