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Nuremberg, Literis Christian Sigismund Froberg, 1683, printed by Endter (Heirs) and Joachim von Sandrart in Frankfurt am Main. Large folio: 39.5 × 25.5 × 5.5cm Period leather binding with gilt label on spine. Extensive iconography presents painters, sculptors, lesser and old philosophers, from antiquity to the author’s present day. Their copperplate portraits on full-page plates are placed inside medallions with various types of frames. Familiar names include Karel Skréta, Bartolomeus Spranger, Aegidius Sadeler and Joseph Heintz the Elder; other names are presented only in the text. The book presents an enormous allegory of painting on the frontispiece. Following this are monumental portraits by the author and many copperplate engravings, including folded and two-page inserts, and the full-page plate presenting nearly three hundred portraits, always six portraits per sheet. The text is enriched with typographic decorations, vignettes, and initials. Painter Joachim von Sandrart, a portrait painter for the high aristocracy, is particularly acclaimed for his excellent prints. He studied in Prague under Aegidius Sadeler and went on to work in Amsterdam and in Nuremberg, where he established the first German academy of art in 1662 and wrote the first art history studies in German. His nephew, Jacob von Sandrart (1630–1708), a Nuremberg engraver, executed several of the medallions listed above as engravings. The copy is in very good preserved condition.