The excellency of the pen and pencil: exemplifying the uses of them in the most exquisite and mysterious arts of drawing, etching, engraving, limning, painting in oyl, washing of maps and pictures, also the way to cleanse any old painting, and preserve the colorurs ... furnished with divers cuts in copper, being copies from the best masters.

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Uitgever

Uitgave
London: printed for Dorman New Man, at the Kings-Arms in the Poultry, 1688
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Notities
- Ed. princ. 1668; Levis, pag. 32
- Originally published 1668, this is the second edition. It is the most comprehensive seventeenth century English artists’ manual, and this edition has an added section on mezzotinting with a plate of the tools. R. D. Harley read the book carefully; she states: “the section on miniature painting seems eminiscent of Hillard and Norgate, but as everyone seems to have recommended the use of abortive parchment and the necessity for three sittings with the sitter placed in a north light, it becomes difficult to distinguish plagiarism from tradition. Following that section is another on oil painting, including portrait painting from life and picture cleaning, and a final section contains instructions for washing prints and maps. The book certainly contains some original remarks...” - Artists pigments 1600-1835, p. 18. The technique of mezzotint was first published by John Evelyn in his Sculptura (1662) but with very little information on technique and without any illustrations of the tools. The present book contains the first known illustration of mezzotint tools. The remarks on picture cleaning, though brief (pp. 108-9) are of some historical importance as well; this work is included in the Ruhemann/Plesters bibliography on restoration and conservation, p. 377. (Charles Wood, Cat. 160)