The compleat gentleman: fashioning him absolute in the most necessary and commendable qualities, concerning mind, or body, that may be required in a person of honor : to which is added the gentlemans exercise or, an exquisite practice, as well for drawing all manner of beasts, as for making colours, to be used in painting, limming, &c

Abstract

This work by Henry Peacham (1576-1655) is given a long notice by Rosamond Harley in her Artists pigments 1600-1835. “The compleat gentleman was first published in 1622. It appears to be the first book in English to discuss portrait painting in oils. It was reprinted in 1626 and 1627; a second enlarged edition appeared in 1634, and a third in 1661. Of all the books, the most useful for the history of pigments is The gentleman’s exercise (Part II). Peacham groups pigments together by hue and discusses their use as well as the derivation of colour names. He makes frequent references to ancient writers, such as Aristotle, Pliny and Dioscorides, but his reliance on such authorities confuses him about certain colours, reds in particular, because the meaning of some colour names had altered by the seventeenth century. In spite of that shortcoming, the book contains much more information than Hilliard’s [earlier] treatise, most of it being of an eminently sensible and practical nature, which makes it worthy of the influence and popularity which it once enjoyed.” In the present edition the material on portrait painting appears in Part I, chapters XIII and XIV; the material on painting and pigments occupies pages 305-422 of Part II. Wing P943. Schlosser-Magnino, p. 646. See also Ken Spelman Catalogue 15:1. (Charles Wood, Cat. 160:192)