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Collation: Folio: A–B², 4 leaves unpaginated, pp. [1] title, [2] blank, [3–6] Preface, [7] Avertissement and Privilege, [8] blank. Woodcut device on title.
Plates: 30 engraved plates: platemarks c. 305 x 220mm, numbered 1–30, the last two signed ‘G. Au. sculp.’
Condition: 305 x 260mm. Stain in blank lower margin of pl. 16, otherwise a fresh and clean copy.
Binding: Full sheep, possibly eighteenth-century, but difficult to date, red edges. A little scuffed.
References: Choulant p. 359. Wellcome II, p. 68 (two copies wtih different settings of the text); Krivatsy 479; Cicognra 291.
Price: £1,500

First edition, one of two different settings of the text [see Wellcome cat], first impressions of the plates. Another issue has the imprint of V.A. Morel and no date on the titlepage (Fordham University Library).
¶ The best guide to human proportion for the use of artists which had appeared up to this time, according to Cicognara, based on detailed measurements classical sculpture. As Dürer had done before, Audran wants to provide a simple way to obtain harmonious proportions in representations of the human figure.

Gérard Audran was one of the most accomplished engravers of his generation. His engravings here, see to great advantage in fine strong impressions, are in bold black lines in the first 26 plates of measured drawings. The last four are cross-hatched, two of facial features and two of expressions after ‘R. Urbin’ (i.e. Charles Le Brun?).