Lot n° 2

ADAMS, George.

Estimation : 200 - 300 €
Adjudication : 1 011 €
Description
Geometrical and Graphical Essays, containing a description of the mathematical instruments used in geometry, civil and military surveying, levelling and perspective, with many new problems. Londres, imprimé pour l'auteur par R. Hindmarsh, 1791. In-8 (212 x 128 mm) de 2 ff.n.ch., XVI,500 pp., frontispice et 32 planches gravées dépliantes; demi-veau brun moderne, dos lisse.
Daumas, Scientific Instruments of the 17th and 18th centuries and their makers, p. 238; Vitry, 2.
Édition originale.
George Adams le Jeune (1750-1795) était un fabricant d'instruments célèbre et fournisseur personnel du roi George III. Son traité de géométrie reste un grand classique dans le domaine de l'art de dessiner en perspective. Il y décrit notamment un nouvel instrument pour faciliter le dessin: le perspectographe, dont 2 versions sont illustrées planche 32.
“In 1791 a maker of scientific instruments named George Adams published a large book on instruments entitled Geometrical and Graphical Essays. Among his instruments are two perspectographs. His description of these devices is very brief, but he did begin with a twenty-two page introduction on perspective in which he included some mathematical considerations. With the argument that so great is the difficulty and so tedious the operation of putting objects in true perspective, Adams recommended the use of an instrument, and he reported that of all those known to him he preferred the two he had depicted” (Kirsti
Andersen, The Geometry of an Art, p. 596).
Très bon exemplaire, coin de la planche 11 arraché.
First edition of this famous book. Adams, scientific instrument maker to George III, wrote largely on the use of mathematical instruments, and his books on that subject were highly valued.
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