Jean Dubreuil (1602-1670)
An Artist Using a Drawing Frame
From La Perspective Practique, 1642 (second edition, 1651)
Etching

This illustration shows an artist using a drawing frame to trace an outdoor scene. A peephole slots into the base of the frame to keep the artist’s viewpoint fixed. The frame is similar to the one shown in Dürer’s illustration of a portrait artist. The renaissance art theorist Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) defined the picture plane as a window in space where the artist chooses to intercept the visual rays converging on his retina. The apparatus in this illustration is directly related to this definition of the picture plane as a window.
NAL G.30.J.21, f.118