Arte de la Pintura su antigüedad y grandezas. Descrivense los hombres eminentes que ha avido en ella, assi antiguos como modernos, del dibujo, y colorido; del pintar al temple, al olio, de la iluminación, y estofado, del pintar al fresco

Pacheco, Francisco

1649. Seville. Simon Faxardo. 4to, (195 x 145 mm). 3 ff., 641 pp., 1 ff. 20th century green crushed morocco, faux raised bands to spine, lettered in gilt, in protective case. Minor soiling to some leaves including title page, small restoration to upper margin away from text, foxing and occasional mainly marginal damp, some corners extended.

First edition, arguably the most important treatise on the art of painting and drawing made in Spain in the 17^thcentury during the Spanish Golden Age, written by Velazquez´ father-in-law and teacher, known as the Vasari of Seville.

 

Very few books have the merit of being the most recognized in their field in a whole country, Pacheco´s Arte certainly has that merit.

 

Pacheco “is widely known for his enormously influential treatise El arte de la pintura and for being the teacher and father-in-law of Diego Velazquez… His engagement with drawing, a subject whose theory and practice he discussed in many of his writings, was most fruitful. He founded the celebrated academy in Seville, described by Antonio Palomino (1653-1726) as the ´gilded cage of art´, which counted the city´s ´greatest minds´ among its members” (López-Fanjul, María, and Díez del Corral. “The Rediscovery of Francisco Pacheco’s Drawing of the ‘Adoration of the Cross.’” Master Drawings 52, no. 4 (2014): 453–63. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43706753.)

 

“[A]l igual que Leonardo, fue Pacheco poeta y pintor, esteticista y filosofo, tratadista del arte y preceptista de sus elaboraciones, teorizador sobre los condicionamientos teológicos del arte sacro y hasta educador en lo teórico y en la práctica de nutridas promociones de nuevos artistas, hasta el punto de que… de la andaluza Escuela de Sevilla surgió un genio capaz de inmortalizar por si solo a un maestro: el inspirado Diego Velazquez da Silva, no sólo discípulo de Pacheco, sino además yerno suyo” (Urmeneta, Fermín de. “FRANCISCO PACHECO, PEDAGOGO DEL ARTE.” Revista Española de Pedagogía 12, no. 48 (1954): 483–95. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23761650.)

 

The work is divided into three books: Libro I: Su antigüedad y grandezas; Libro II: Su teórica, y partes de que se compone); Libro III: De su prática y de todos los modos de exercitarla), and ends with an appendix on religiousiconography.

 

“Obra buscadisima y muy rara”, Palau.

 

Palau, 208133; Nicolas Antonio vol. I, pp. 456; not in Cicognara.

1649

$24,000.00