Essays on physiognomy : designed to promote the knowledge and the love of mankind ... To which are added , one hundred physiognomonical rules, ... and memoirs of the life of the author / written by John Caspar Lavater.
A 1797 London edition of Johann Caspar Lavater's Essays on Physiognomy, translated by Thomas Holcroft and published by William Tegg for a general readership interested in character reading. Its plates are rows of pencil-and-ink profile and three-quarter head studies of men of varied ages, wigs, hats and beards, numbered for comparison. A designer could draw on their clean, consistent contour linework and the varied character types for portrait sketches, period costume references, or a set of expressive caricature-like faces.
