VALENCIENNES Elémens de perspective pratique à l'usage des artistes. Paris, chez l'auteur et chez Desenne & Duprat, an VIII (1800). in-4°, xxix - (3 pp errata) - 644 pp - xii pp of tables and 36 filled plates (a few creases). contemporary half-brown marbled basane binding, smooth spine decorated with gilded fillets and fleurons, blond morocco title-piece (binding tired, jaws cracked, caps worn). First edition of this fundamental treatise with 36 fold-out plates. On his return from Italy, where he spent several years, Toulouse painter Pierre-Henri Valenciennes (1750-1819) founded a school of classical landscape painting and taught perspective at the Ecole Polytechnique. His work is a veritable treatise on landscape painting. There are three chapters in particular, the first devoted to the interaction between (aerial) perspective and color, the second to the use of this science in the construction of theatrical sets, and thus of all the deformations to be applied to produce the desired effects. The third is entirely devoted to the art of gardens, in which the author argues against a fashion that has imposed the picturesque to the detriment of a sense of proportion. The second part of the book is devoted to painting, and in particular to landscapes.