THE ARTIST'S REPOSITORY AND DRAWING MAGAZINE, EXHIBITING THE PRINCIPLES OF THE POLITE ARTS IN THEIR VARIOUS BRANCHES. Vol. I [-] IV.

An important and beautifully produced periodical on art instruction and appreciation. Edited by Francis Fitzgerald, The Artist's Repository and Drawing Magazine. was published by Charles Taylor, and many of the illustrations are by the famed engraver, Francesco Bartolozzi. The text takes the form of lectures and covers a wide variety of subjects of interest to the students and consumers of art, including human and animal physiognomy, human figures and character, architecture, landscape, perspective, and the uses of color. Much of the work, therefore, amounts to a prolonged course in art criticism, and this periodical played a significant role in educating the British populace to what constitutes fine art. It thereby served to instruct those who wanted to become artists, and to cultivate the eye of art consumers in an era when art was accessible to a wider populace than just the royal court. Also included are biographies and assessments of several artists, and analyses of various paintings, sculptures, and buildings that would have been accessible to readers. There are also portraits of significant painters, sculptors, architects, and engravers including Nicholas Poussin, Michael Rysbrack, Wenceslaus Hollar, Peter Paul Rubens, Van Dyck, Inigo Jones, Mrs. Grace, and more. Many of the plates are the work of the great Italian engraver, Francesco Bartolozzi (1727–1815). He was born and studied art in Italy, before coming to England in 1764 and being made "engraver to the King." He produced thousands of plates in England, refining and perfecting the "red chalk style," a form of stipple engraving that had been recently invented by the French. Many of the plates in The Artist's Repository. are in the "red chalk" style, especially those showing the human form, a specialty of Bartolozzi's. A handsome set of this important art journal. Uniformly bound in contemporary marbled boards with antique-style calf backstrips, morocco labels. Boards a bit rubbed, corners somewhat worn. One folding plate expertly repaired, a few plates with old dampstains in upper portion, else internally clean and fresh. A near fine set.…