A series of 22 numbered engravings of anatomical and character studies intended to instruct students in the principles of drawing, after drawings comprising Guercino's Drawing Book, or, Libro dei disegni; originally created when Guercino's patron Antonio Mirandola asked Oliviero Gatti to engrave Guercino's drawing studies which would have provided models for students to practice drawings (Prisco Bagni, Il Guercino e i suoi incisori, p. 6); dedicated to Ferdinando Gonzaga Duke of Mantua.
The later state of Gatti's engravings after Guercino's drawing book, the plates evidently restruck and issued some time in the mid- or later seventeenth century by printer/publisher Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi (1627-1691), with his imprint and "questo e il Vero Originale" added to the frontispiece plate.
Printed from the original copper plates engraved in 1619 by Oliviero Gatti; the plates for this series are mentioned in an inventory of the de Rossi family printshop taken in 1648, at which time the inheritance was divided among the four sons of founder Giuseppe il Vecchio de Rossi who had died in 1639.
With a frontispiece plate (plate 1) with an allegorical representation of Painting as a woman sitting with a palette and paint brushes in her hands; in front of her two putti hold a large coat of arms; a seascape is behind them; lettered on the coat of arms "Fides", and at bottom left "Sereniss. Mantua e Duci / Ferdinando Gonzaghae DD./ Jo. Franciscus Barberius Centen. / Inventor / questo e il vero originale", below it "Si stampa p Gio Giacomo Rossi in Roma alla Pace", and at right "Oliverius Gattus Sculpsit 1619".
Series of 22 engravings after Guercino's Libro dei disegni
Artist's copy book featuring a series of anatomical and figural studies demonstrating how to draw eyes, ears, mouths, hands, arms, feet, the torso, and heads of different ages and types.