Lot 140 email save

DURER, Albrecht (1471-1528). Hierinn sind begriffe

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Nuremberg: Hieronymus Andreae Formschneider for Dürer's widow, 31 October 1528. 4to (315 x 220 mm). Gothic type, including some printed in double column. Dürer's large woodcut "AD" on title, ca. 136 woodcuts of human figures depicted in proportion, 4 folding woodcut diagrams and numerous smaller woodcut diagrams in text depicting hands, arms and head in closer detail. 20th-century marbled boards. Condition: one leaf with long closed tear with old tape, but without loss to text or image; marginal tape burn to first three leaves; marginal browning to a few others, small hole in bottom margin of last text leaf. first edition. "Written, designed and illustrated by Dürer, the posthumous Vier bücher was the first work to discuss the problems of comparative and differential anthropometry. Dürer held that the essence of true form was the primary mathematical figure (e.g., straight line, circle, curve, conic section) constructed arithmetically or geometrically, and made beautiful by the application of a canon of proportion. However, he was also convinced that beauty of form was a relative and not an absolute quality; thus the purpose of his system of anthropometry was to provide the artist with the means to delineate, on the basis of sheer measurement, all possible types of human figures" (Norman). Bohatta 17; Choulant-Frank, pp. 143-44; Garrison-Morton 149; NLM/Durling 1295; Stillwell Science 622; Norman 666.

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