People:

Atelier de Jacques 1er Androuet Du Cerceau (draughtsman)
Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau (architect)

Title:

Album of eighty-one drawings of architecture

Date:

circa 1545-1550

Description:

The album contains drawings of architectural details (chimneys, windows, arches, columns), proposals for small-scale works such as tombs, wells, and fountains, large architectural projects including palaces and temples, and drawings of built works.

Quantity / Object type:
1 album(s)

Technique and media:

Pen and brush drawings on vellum dessins à la plume et au pinceau sur vélin

Dimensions:

album (closed): 23,3 x 31,5 x 4 cm

Reference number:

DR1986:0108:001-081

Physical characteristics and technical requirements:

- Bound album containing eighty-one pen and brush drawings on vellum. The drawings were created using a compass and graphite traced in black ink and grey wash. Some planning lines are visible: for example, a graphite grid radiating from a center point on Folio 19 (“le porticle d'ung temple”). The vellum folios are yellows on the hair side and white on the flesh side. The album’s cover is brown leather ornamented with cold-pressed interlacing stamped vegetal ornamental motifs in black, white, gold, green-blue, and white. The spine is embossed in gold with black painted borders. The sixteenth-century binding is hand-sewn with paper linings inside the cover bindings and paper strips pasted along the inside covers and along the inside edges of some of the vellum folios.

Inscription:

The interior of the covers includes the notes and the ex-libris of previous owners. Notes in graphite by an unknown writer on the interior of the front cover track the history of attributions for the drawings from Germain Pilon (1970) to Du Cerceau. It also includes a list of references. On the interior of the back cover, another hand has made notes in Latin: Dupl. 15. 29. 40. 46. 59. $65. 72 / Imagines 81 plagulo 88. – 1837 / Apart. Chart. 6. 10. 43. 48. And a list of “pulcherrimi,” or the folios that the writer deemed the most beautiful.

Credit line:
Collection Centre Canadien d'Architecture/
Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal