Hubert ([?Arsène-Claude], fl. 1809-1810) A student's album of 36 drawings from École Imperiale Polytechnique, including academic drawings of descriptive geometry, drawing of machinery and parts, architectural plans and elevations, fully worked studies of classical columns and architectural details, with eleven of the drawings signed and approved by Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand (1760-1834), 26 pen and black ink, some with watercolour, 6 fully worked monochrome watercolours, 4 graphite drawings, all signed, each variously inscribed with approval signatures of Durand, Armand, and Sganzin, the majority all bound on stubs, several double-page and one folding, each leaf c.520 x 355 mm., mostly on thick laid paper with various watermarks including that of Van Der Ley and J Honig & Zoon, three sheets on orange printed grid paper, occasional spotting, browning and surface dirt, two or three tears to sheets, front flyleaf with creases, nicks and tears, bound in old quarter morocco, paste paper covered boards, large folio, [c.1809-1810].
⁂ Established in 1794 by the mathematician Gaspard Monge during the French Revolution, the Polytechnique became a military academy under Napoleon I in 1804. Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand (1760-1834), an important proponent of Neoclassicism, worked at the institution as a Professor of Architecture from 1795.