In 1766 John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), a young Boston portraitist, wrote the following letter to the American artist Benjamin West (1738-1820), then living and working in London:

'I think myself peculiarly unlucky in Liveing in a place into which there has not been one portrait brought that is worthy to be call'd a Picture within my memory, which leaves me at a great loss to gess the stile that You, Mr. Reynolds, and the other Artists pracktice. I shall be glad when you write next [if] you will . . . be kind anough to inform me what Count Allgarotti means by the five points that he recommends for amusement and to assist the invention of postures, and weither any prints after Corregios or Titianos are to be purchased. I fear I shall tire Your patience and mak you repent your wrighting to one who makes so may requests in one letter.'

In it we sense both the frustration and excitement of an eighteenth-century American artist struggling to overcome the limitations of his colonial environment. Art academies, where ideas could be exchanged, skills learned, and the nude studied, did not exist. Paintings by masters of the first order were nonexistent. Artists had to be content with uninspired copies and mezzotint engravings such as the 'Corregios and Titianos' requested by Copley. These resources were inadequate especially when compared to the volume and sophistication of modern European art.

Although visual material was limited, written material on art theory, aesthetics, criticism, history, biography and instruction was available through the numerous books on art either sold by booksellers or accessible in both the social and circulating library. In these texts conventions were established. For example, Raphael was generally recommended for composition and ideal beauty, Titian for color, and Correggio for chiaroscuro. Most books on art, however, assumed the reader had a visual knowledge of the material discussed. Therefore, much of the discussion must have remained obscure to even the most sophisticated American reader, as evidenced by Copley's request to know the meaning behind a comment in Francesco Algarotti's An Essay on Painting (1763). Although it would have been impossible to understand Titian's painterly technique and rich color through a written text (as it was impossible to understand technique and color through the study of a black-and-white line engraving), the literature on art helped to establish the groundwork in artistic theory that enabled both the artist and the connoisseur to make educated judgments about the highly valued but abstract principles of art. See appendix E.

Although aesthetics and criticism were certainly of interest to an artist of Copley's capabilities, the more itinerant or amateur painter probably would have preferred to read instruction manuals than art treatises, such as Robert Dossie's The Handmaid to the Arts (1758). Practical lessons in anatomy, perspective, symmetry, color, drapery, invention, disposition, expression, imitation, chiaroscuro, design and composition included in such manuals provided the basics from which an artist might learn or improve his skills in drawing and painting.

Compared to books on religion, law and surgery, books on the fine arts were few in number. They were, however, considered an essential part of any carefully chosen private or public library. For example, in 1771 Thomas Jefferson (1743- 1826), was asked by Robert Skipwith to recommend a list of books appropriate for a gentleman's library. Among the 148 titles suggested by Jefferson were Edmund Burke's An Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), William Hogarth's The Analysis of Beauty (1753), Lord Kames's Elements of Criticism (1762) and Daniel Webb's An Inquiry into the Beauties of Painting (1760). In his response to Skipwith, Jefferson remarked that the critical essays such as those by Burke, Kames and Hogarth would stimulate the imagination and provide pleasurable 'speculation' for the mind.3 Similarly, in 1793 the Harvard College librarian Thaddeus Mason Harris (1768-1842) created a list of 277 English books that he considered suitable for the establishment of a small social library. Among them were Valentine Green's A Review of the Polite Arts in France (1782), Hogarth's The Analysis of Beauty, Kames's Elements of Criticism, Joseph Priestley's A Familiar Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Perspective (1770), Rudolf Raspe's A Critical Essay on Oil-Painting (1781), Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourses (1769- 90), and Webb's An Inquiry into the Beauties of Painting. Although 'ideal' libraries are not within the parameters of this checklist, Harris's list of books which was published in 1793 is included. Jefferson's own personal library was sold to the United States government in 1815. His library, therefore, is reflected in the 1815 catalogue of the Library of Congress.

With the exception of private London book agents used by more isolated southern collectors, most Americans either purchased books from a bookstore, or borrowed books from either a social library supported by subscription, a circulating library owned and operated by a local bookseller, or a college library.6 If one were to judge cultural sophistication by the number of books on art and aesthetics sold by booksellers or owned by public libraries, then the cities of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New York and Boston stand out from the rest. By far the largest collection of art books during this period was owned by the Library Company of Philadelphia (104 titles), followed at a considerable distance by the Library Company of Baltimore (40 titles), the Charleston Library Society (39 titles), and the New York Society Library (37 titles). The number of booksellers and auctioneers offering art books for sale also helps us to determine the impact of the literature of art on a community. The cities which supported a large number of booksellers were Boston (23 booksellers), Philadelphia (20 booksellers) and New York (12 booksellers). Similarly, the booksellers who stocked and sold the largest numbers of art books were Louis Alexis Hocquet de Caritat in New York (22 titles), Samuel Campbell in New York (16 titles), and Robert Bell in Philadelphia (15 titles). See appendix C and D.

Although few books on art existed in the early years of the eighteenth century, the vast majority of art books (regardless of their date of publication) made their first appearance only after the American Revolution. The earliest art book listed in an American catalogue was William Salmon's Polygraphice; or the Art of Drawing, Engraving, Etching, Limning, Painting, Washing, Varnishing, Colouring and Dying (1672) listed in Samuel Gerrish's sale catalogue for 1719. This was followed much later by an English translation of Jean Dubreuil's La perspective practique necessaire a tous peintres, graveurs, architectes, brodeurs, sculpteurs, orfevres, tapissiers, et autres qui se meslent de deseigner (1642) and Anthony Ashley Cooper Shaftesbury's Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, both of which appeared in the catalogue of the Library Company of Philadelphia in 1741. It was not until 1757 that the more intellectual and more focused treatises on art appeared. William Aglionby's Painting Illustrated in Three Dialogues (1685), the English translation of Charles Alphonse Du Fresnoy's L'art peinture (1668) and the English translation of Roger De Piles's Abrégé de la vie des peintres (1699) were all listed that year in the catalogue of the Library Company of Philadelphia. See appendix A.

The most desirable art books, however, were those that were the most general, that is, authors which either discussed broad issues of connoisseurship and criticism, or provided useful 'recipes,' such as Kames's Elements of Criticism (79 references), Burke's An Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (56 references), Dossie's The Handmaid to the Arts (46 references) and Shaftesbury's Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (42 references). Not all books were so popular. Half of the books in this checklist were listed in only one library or bookseller's catalogue. The impact of these books, however, will be left to other scholars to determine. See appendix B.

Significant or insignificant, this checklist identifies all books relevant to art in America through 1815. Booksellers' and library catalogues used to compile this list are available through the American Antiquarian Society's Early American Imprints, edited by Clifford K. Shipton and indexed by Charles Evans in American Bibliography and by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker in American Bibliography: A Preliminary Checklist 1801- 1819. Book catalogues prior to 1801 have been identified by Robert B. Winans in A Descriptive Checklist of Book Catalogues Separately Printed in America 1693-1800. Art books published or reprinted in America during this period have been previously listed in my book American Imprints on Art through 1865: Books and Pamphlets on Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Aesthetics, Art Criticism, and Instruction.

Books in this checklist are numbered and listed in alphabetical order by author, followed by the full title of the first edition, publisher and date. Later translations in French and/ or English are included as required. The National Union Catalog: Pre-1956 Imprints, the Online Computer Library Center's (OCLC) FirstSearch and The British Library's (Portico) Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC 97) provided bibliographical information. If a book had been published or reprinted in America, an Early American Imprint (EAI) number, identified as either Evans (E) or Shaw/Shoemaker (S), and an American Imprints on Art (AIA) number will follow the main entry. A few titles resisted all efforts at identification. These 'ghost' titles are numbered and appear in the checklist in brackets.

Each numbered title is followed by a list of booksellers and libraries, along with their full catalogue reference. Book titles along with other bibliographical information was taken from the earliest catalogue in which the book appeared. Original spelling, capitalization, &c. have been kept for author/title entries. Spelling varies in the eighteenth century, thus only clear typographical mistakes are indicated by 'sic.' Additional material supplied by the catalogues, such as edition, place and date of publication, number of volumes and size, has been arranged in a consistent manner. If a library later published a more thorough catalogue of its holdings, additional bibliographical information supplied by those later catalogues will appear in brackets. If a bookseller listed a title in more than one sale catalogue, each additional catalogue is identified by date. However, for the purposes of this checklist, the title is 'counted' only once.

Following the symbol, full bibliographical information is given for the first citation of each bookseller or library catalogue. Also included is an Early American Imprint (EAI) number, identified as either Evans (E) or Shaw/Shoemaker (S), and a Winans (W) number where appropriate. At the end of this checklist are appendices which reorganize the material by date of the first catalogue reference, by the number of catalogue references, by libraries and booksellers, and by the size of collections. Also included is a list of American artists and the books they read.

The following checklist identifies and locates 183 books on art that were available in America through the year 1815. It represents almost 100 years of collecting in America. And although there are limitations to this research, it is hoped that students of American culture will find it a useful tool in determining those concepts that helped to mold the artistic taste of early American society.