A complete course of lithography: containing Clear and Explicit Instructions in all the different branches and manners of that art: accompanied by illustrative specimens of drawings. To which is prefixed a history of lithography, from its origin to the present time. By Alois Senefelder, inventor of the art of lithography and chemical printing. With a preface By Frederic von Schlichtegroll, Director of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Munich. Translated from the original German, by A. S.

Senefelder, Alois; pref. Friedrich von Schlichtegroll, trans. Antonin Schlichtegroll

Edité par W. Clowes for R. Ackermann, London, 1819

A propos de cet article

First edition in English. London: W. Clowes for R. Ackermann, 1819. Quarto (10 9/16" x 8 3/16", 268mm x 208mm). [Full collation available.] With 13 of 14 lithographed plates: a chromolithographed frontispiece and 12 lithographed plates, of which 1 is tinted and 1 is folding; the hand-colored portrait of Senefelder (preceding p. 1) supplied in an old facsimile. Bound in XXc quarter blue morocco over blue marbled boards. On the spine, five raised bands. Author and title gilt to the second panel. A little rubbed, with some sunning to the spine. Lightly foxed, particularly at the plates, with some offsetting. Some creases to the paper, but altogether good margins. Loss to the upper fore-corner of 2D4 (pp. 209-210), not affecting the text. The portrait of Senefelder supplied in (old) facsimile, with some disruption to the image. Alois Johann Senefelder (Aloys, 1771-1834) was born in Prague and set out to be an actor and playwright. Being unable to afford the conventional publication of a play he'd written, he experimented with using a grease-pencil on smooth stone to hold the ink, which could be rinsed off the rest of surface. This was the first planographic -- as opposed to relief (e.g., woodcut) and intaglio (e.g., engraving) -- printing process, which fundamentally reshaped printing in the XIXc and XXc. Accused, as Friedrich von Schlichtegroll explains in the preface (the whole translated by von Schlichtegroll's son, Antonin), of guarding the technique he invented, Senefelder wrote in 1818 the Vollständiges Lehrbuch der Steindruckerey, which was translated into French and into English the following year as the present volume. Rudolf Ackermann (1764-1834) was a fellow German-speaker who had settled in London. He was the great Georgian and Regency exponent of lithography in Britain; his Repository of Arts ran to forty volumes over twenty years and he popularized the lithographic illustration of literature that would bring the work of artists such as Cosway, Cruikshank, Pugin and Rowlandson to a vast reading public. It is fitting, therefore, that he should be the apostle of the art in England. The work aims to be useful both to the publisher (Ackerman offers, with the list of materials at the end, to publish submissions via lithography) and to the artist, as well as to the curious public. It is split into three sections: history, practice and technique. The illustrations exemplify both chromolithography (the frontispiece depicts blackletter in black, red and blue) and "plain" lithography, including one tinted in imitation of old master drawings on colored paper heightened with chalk.

N° de réf. du vendeur JLR0765

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: A complete course of lithography: containing Clear and Explicit Instructions in all the different branches and manners of that art: accompanied by illustrative specimens of drawings. To which is prefixed a history of lithography, from its origin to the present time. By Alois Senefelder, inventor of the art of lithography and chemical printing. With a preface By Frederic von Schlichtegroll, Director of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Munich. Translated from the original German, by A. S.
• Éditeur: W. Clowes for R. Ackermann, London
• Date de parution: 1819
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: First.
• État de l'article: Very good
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Europe
  • History