COUSIN L'art du dessin Paris, Jean, s.d (circa 1810).small folio, engraved title-frontispiece - 12 pp & 24 engraved plates (corners corrugated). The famous French painter gives us the proportions of the human body and the geometrical means to draw its figures in all directions. A fine copy in a contemporary binding. Cousin was nicknamed the "French Michelangelo". Each page of his treatise is illustrated on the front with the engraved figures needed to understand and practice drawing the human body. L'Art de dessiner d'après Cousin (1522-1594) went through numerous editions in the late 18th and 19th centuries. It is in fact an adaptation of the "Livre de pourtraicture" (1560, then 1595, posthumous), inspired by the system of proportions of the human body developed by Vitruvius and Dürer, and which served for a long time as a study book for artists.