Rotterdam, F. van Hoogstraeten, 1678. Small 4to (20.1 x 15.5 cm). Engraved title, letterpress title in red and black; [xiv], 361, [viii] pp.; Engraved frontispiece portrait by J. Oudaan; 14 folded plates, four text engravings. Contemporary full, polished calf. Spine with five raised bands; compartments rich gilt with floral vignettes and cornerpieces, and red morocco label with gilt title; boards with gilt double fillet borders and gilt floral corner-pieces; gilt floral-ruled board edges. Marbled endpapers. All edges red.

A fine, complete copy including all five anatomical plates (A-E), and nine plates illustrating the nine Muses. This is a major work on art theory, written and illustrated by the Dutch poet and painter of the Golden Age, Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraeten, or Hoogstraten (1627-1678), who was a pupil of Rembrandt, and painted much in his style. "Besides painting and directing a mint, he devoted some of his time to literary labours. His magnum opus is a book on painting, the Introduction to the Academy of Painting, or the Visible World (original title: Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst: anders de zichtbaere werelt, Rotterdam, 1678 [this work]) which is in length and theoretical scope one of the most ambitious treatises on the art of painting published in the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century. It covers issues such as pictorial persuasion and illusionism, the painter's moral standards and the relation of painting to philosophy, referring to various ancient and modern authors. While reacting to international, mainly Southern European ideas on painting which Van Hoogstraten may have encountered during his travels, the treatise also reflects contemporary talk and thought on art from Dutch studios. He wrote it as a sequel to Karel van Mander's early-17th-century book on painting and painters entitled Het Schilder-Boeck. One of van Hoogstraten's many students, Arnold Houbraken, later wrote the book entitled The Great Theatre of Dutch Painters, which included a biography of his teacher. This biography is the basis of most of the information that we have about van Hoogstraten today" (Wikipedia). Provenance: on the front pastedown a bookplate of Buijnsters-Smets. P. J. Buijnsters (1933-2022), who published on Dutch 18th-century literature, and his wife and co-author of publications about Dutch children's books, L. M. A. Buijnsters-Smets (1937-2021), amassed a library of fine and unusual Dutch books and Dutch editions of foreign works on subjects such as travel, history, natural history, emblemata, artist's manuals, children's books, etc. Their bookplate is a hallmark of quality and rarity. Light wear to the boards; hinges starting at top ends, otherwise very good. Internally clean and unmarked. Hollstein IX, p. 136.