BOSSE, Abraham. ~ Traicté des manières de graver en taille douce sur l’airin. Par le moyen des eaux fortes, & des vernix durs & mols. Ensemble de la façon d’en imprimer les planches & d’en constuire la presse, & autres choses concernans lesdits arts. Paris: [the author], 1645.
8vo (166 × 100 mm), pp. [6], 75, [1], plus 2 engraved titles, engraved headpiece to dedication and 18 plates (some printed on both sides, two with duplicate numbers), complete. Light marginal browning. Nineteenth-century quarter sheep. Rubbed, corners a little more worn, old ownership inscription to head of pastedown: ‘Ex libris C. Koebel’. A very good copy.
First edition of the first technical manual on etching, by one the greatest engravers of his era, which remained the fundamental source for artists and printers well into the nineteenth century. En Français dans le Texte calls Bosse ‘Remarquable technicien, il sut garder à l eau-forte sa légèreté tout en lui donnant la rigueur du burin’. Several chapters here are devoted to preparation of the plates and the varnishes, others cover the actual techniques of engraving and etching, and the final section is devoted to the construction of the press and its operation. The illustrations are frequently reproduced in histories of engraving and print. Bigmore, Bibliography of Printing 72; Cicognara 251, En Français dans le Texte 92.