HANDBOOK OF YOUNG ARTISTS AND AMATEURS IN OILPAINTING BEING CHIEFLY A CONDENSED COMPILATION FROM THE CELEBRATED MANUAL OF BOUVIER, WITH ADDITIONAL MATTER SELECTED FROM THE LABOURS OF MERIMEE, DE MONTAVERT AND OTHER DISTINGUISHED CONTINENTAL WRITERS IN THE ART.By an American Artist.

[Osborn, Laughton]:

Published by New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1845.

About this Item

First edition of a popular American artist's manual by New York artist and author Laughton Obsorn, based on Pierre Louis Bouvier's Manuel des jeunes artistes et amateurs en peinture (Paris, 1827). Laughton's Handbook has been described as "the most popular mid-nineteeth-century American book on technique" (Mayer & Myers). "[A] number of books on painting technique written by European authors in the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s had become available to American painters. Perhaps most importantly, in 1845 the American Laughton Osborn published Handbook of Young Artists and Amateurs in Oilpainting, a partial translation of a book by the Swiss artist Pierre-Louis Bouvier, with considerable additions by Osborn himself. Osborn's book contains a great deal of very useful and practical information; artists must have noticed this, for the book was reprinted without alteration in many editions until at least 1883" - Mayer & Myers. Laughton Osborn (1809 1878) was a New York artist and author. His literary works included "Sixty Years of the Life of Jeremy Levis (2 vols., 1831), a novel in the vein of Tristram Shandy, and The Vision of Rubeta (1838), a romantic story of some of New York history containing attacks on contemporary authors, particularly W.L. Stone and Wordsworth. He also wrote miscellaneous poems and unproduced dramas" (Hart). Osborn was a friend and correspondent of Edgar Allen Poe, who published a number of critical reviews and notices of Osborn's works. "This work is in 7 parts: a serious textbook with precise, detailed instruction in everything from materials and implements, through practice, into finishing, varnishing and lining a painted picture. With a vocabulary" - Drepperd. "Instruction in the art of oil painting addressed to the more accomplished student of art.Topics of discussion include the nature and properties of colors, different oils used as vehicles, choosing pencils and brushes, dimensions and light necessary for a workroom, reflections, glazing, impasto, dead-coloring, finishing, draperies, landscape, and varnishing, cleaning, repairing, and lining of pictures" - Schimmelman. SCHIMMELMAN, AMERICAN IMPRINTS ON ART 389. DREPPERD, AMERICAN PIONEER ARTS AND ARTISTS, p.27. Lance Mayer and Gay Myers, American Painters on Technique: The Colonial Period to 1860 (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2011), pp.84, 91. James D. Hart, ed., The Oxford Companion to American Literature, 6th ed. (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995), p.494. Original publishers brown cloth, spine stamped in decorative gilt, gilt-ruled boards. Binding rubbed and a bit soiled, some wear to extremities, spine ends lightly frayed, wear to cloth at joint ends. Light to moderate foxing to text throughout. Small embossed stamp to front free endpaper. Contemporary ink presentation inscription ("Miss / Martha E. French / from her friend / H.F.W.") to front free endpaper. Occasional annotations and doodles in pencil. Metal pin to pp.323-24. About very good.

Seller Inventory # 68854

Bibliographic Details

• Title: HANDBOOK OF YOUNG ARTISTS AND AMATEURS IN OILPAINTING BEING CHIEFLY A CONDENSED COMPILATION FROM THE CELEBRATED MANUAL OF BOUVIER, WITH ADDITIONAL MATTER SELECTED FROM THE LABOURS OF MERIMEE, DE MONTAVERT AND OTHER DISTINGUISHED CONTINENTAL WRITERS IN THE ART.By an American Artist.
• Publisher: New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1845.
• Edition: 1st Edition