The artists repository and drawing magazine: exhibiting the principles of the polite arts in their various branches
A 1794 English drawing manual and artists' repository, held by Heidelberg University Library, that set out the principles of the polite arts for students and amateur draughtsmen. Its plates are engraved architectural studies of classical column orders, capitals, entablatures and bases, drawn in fine parallel hatching with clear measured profiles. A designer can take from them the crisp line-engraving vocabulary of Neoclassical ornament, where acanthus leaves, fluting, bead-and-reel and stepped mouldings are rendered with economical tonal shading.
