Gautier d'Agoty, Jacques Fabien ; Duverney, J.F.M
Anatomie de la tête, en tableaux imprimés qui representent au naturel le Cerveau sous differentes coupes, la distribution des Vaisseaux dans toutes les parties de la tete, les organes des sens, et une partie de la nevrologie, 1748. Paris. Gautier, Duverney et Quillau.
An amazing copy of a strange and hypnotic book: l’anatomie de la tête by Gautier d'Agoty
First edition of the first work, a fascinating rendering of the human skull and a fabulous piece of 18th century pioneering color printing, one of the first works by Gautier. ‘Gautier operated with great intelligence and an economy of means that was often extremely effective’ (Anatomie de la couleur, p. 112). He was the first to know how to exploit the new process of printing in color.
First edition of the first work, a fascinating rendering of the human skull and a fabulous piece of 18th century pioneering color printing, one of the first works by Gautier. ‘Gautier operated with great intelligence and an economy of means that was often extremely effective’ (Anatomie de la couleur, p. 112). He was the first to know how to exploit the new process of printing in color.
Further images
Folio, (760 x 525 mm, the plates 460 x 355 mm, the text leaves havealso been window mounted, title printed in red and black with a small engraved vignette). 11 ff. of text and 8 color printed and varnished plates. Half black morocco over beige cloth by Riviere, flat spine lettering in gilt. Text and plates window mounted to provide a uniform binding, making it an impressive oversize book, some light foxing and toning to text, the plates without the usual wrinkling because of the varnish, thus is excellent condition.
The dissections and preparations for the eight large figures of the head were prepared by Joseph Guichard Du Verney and Pierre Tarin, they are amongst the most intricate plates produced by Gautier, on account of the network of blood vessels, “meticulously indicated by direct color printing” (Heirs of Hippocrates, Iowa University Libraries catalogue entry).
For fifty years, this strange artist, half imposter, half visionary, developed an overflowing activity in the sector of engraved anatomy. In many plates, the concern for scientific truth fades in favor of the artist's reverie; the grandiose effect is preferred to detail. ‘The plates no longer invite us to study, but to admire a living architecture, to participate in a mystery where the constituent elements are our history, our physique, our functioning, suddenly revealed to consciousness by dissection’. (BnF, Anatomie de la couleur, p. 114). The technique involves the combination of a mezzotint engraving (Gautier obtained the black by densifying the grain) and a polychromatic process with one plate per colour (red, blue, yellow and black).
‘This work was announced as early as July 1748. Its production was interrupted by the death of its surgeon, Jacques-François Duverney… He was replaced in this work by Mr Pierre Tarin… The Mercure of August 1749 announced that Gautier had been received by the king, to whom he dedicated his Anatomie de la tête under the name of Cephalotomy)’ (Anatomie de la couleur).
“Gautier's pictures seem to us to be in the tradition of the early gravida illustrations and the figures of Berengario and Charles Estienne--often attracting attention through sexual emphasis: dissected parts were placed within a living body, usually possessing a lively face, whose expression is sometimes quizzical, sometimes erotically inviting, sometimes serene, always with a romantic andelegant hair-style. In one of Gautier's plates there are two naked women, one standing with emphatic breasts and dissected pregnant uterus, the other sitting at her feet with open thighs so disposed as to exhibit her external genitalia. Such erotic figures may have also played a useful role in the sex education of physicians and others; they may be contrasted in their romantic extravagance of feeling with the matter-of-fact illustration in William Smellie's work (1754) anillustration that was often torn out by nineteenth century bowdlerizers. (Most previous illustrations of this area, such as those of Leonardo or Vesalius, were remarkably inaccurate.) The Gautier figures could, within the confines of anatomy, be quite tender, as in the fine plate in Anatomie generale... of a new- born child, asleep but dissected, lying close to the recently-delivered mother, whose uterus has been opened for display” (Roberts & Tomlinson pp. 524-25).
Gautier d´Agoty (1717-1785):This name is associated with some of the most groundbreaking efforts in print-making of the 18th century, he studied under LeBlon briefly, from whom he learned the basis of colour impressions.
“His colored mezzotints are often of very striking artistic power” (Garrison).
The plates “will always retain their value in the history of art and especially in the history of anatomic illustrations” (Choulant).
“Jacques Gautier d'Agoty was a color mezzotint engraver and painter. He began to engrave in 1736 and developed a theory for color mezzotints derived from that of LeBlon, under whom he studied briefly in 1738. His theories, unlike LeBlon's, tended to refute Newton's concepts of color, upon which LeBlon had based his three-color system. Gautier d'Agoty held chat the fundamental colors were black, blue, yellow, red, and white [the fifth color supplied by the white paper]. His early work was hampered in part by the patent on a similar color process held in France by LeBlon, but following LeBlon's death in 1741, Gaurier d'Agoty obtained a thirty-year patent on his process. Based upon his introduction of the fourth black plate, in 1749 he called himself ´Inventeur de l'Art de graver et imprimer les Tableaux à quatre couleurs.´
His color process was used to illustrate several anatomical works, botanical studies, and natural histories. He also reproduced sacred and mythological subjects and some portraits. Some of his color plates do not seem to be based on existing paintings but were taken directly from his own compositions. In the preparation of his later plates, he was assisted by his sons.” (D. R. R., and Dale R. Roylance. “The Eighteenth Century: Search for Tone.” Yale Art GalleryBulletin 27/28 (1962): 24–34).
Anatomie de la couleur. L’invention de l’estampe en couleurs, Paris, BnF, 1996, n° 103; Choulant-Frank, p.271; Wellcome II, p.97.
The dissections and preparations for the eight large figures of the head were prepared by Joseph Guichard Du Verney and Pierre Tarin, they are amongst the most intricate plates produced by Gautier, on account of the network of blood vessels, “meticulously indicated by direct color printing” (Heirs of Hippocrates, Iowa University Libraries catalogue entry).
For fifty years, this strange artist, half imposter, half visionary, developed an overflowing activity in the sector of engraved anatomy. In many plates, the concern for scientific truth fades in favor of the artist's reverie; the grandiose effect is preferred to detail. ‘The plates no longer invite us to study, but to admire a living architecture, to participate in a mystery where the constituent elements are our history, our physique, our functioning, suddenly revealed to consciousness by dissection’. (BnF, Anatomie de la couleur, p. 114). The technique involves the combination of a mezzotint engraving (Gautier obtained the black by densifying the grain) and a polychromatic process with one plate per colour (red, blue, yellow and black).
‘This work was announced as early as July 1748. Its production was interrupted by the death of its surgeon, Jacques-François Duverney… He was replaced in this work by Mr Pierre Tarin… The Mercure of August 1749 announced that Gautier had been received by the king, to whom he dedicated his Anatomie de la tête under the name of Cephalotomy)’ (Anatomie de la couleur).
“Gautier's pictures seem to us to be in the tradition of the early gravida illustrations and the figures of Berengario and Charles Estienne--often attracting attention through sexual emphasis: dissected parts were placed within a living body, usually possessing a lively face, whose expression is sometimes quizzical, sometimes erotically inviting, sometimes serene, always with a romantic andelegant hair-style. In one of Gautier's plates there are two naked women, one standing with emphatic breasts and dissected pregnant uterus, the other sitting at her feet with open thighs so disposed as to exhibit her external genitalia. Such erotic figures may have also played a useful role in the sex education of physicians and others; they may be contrasted in their romantic extravagance of feeling with the matter-of-fact illustration in William Smellie's work (1754) anillustration that was often torn out by nineteenth century bowdlerizers. (Most previous illustrations of this area, such as those of Leonardo or Vesalius, were remarkably inaccurate.) The Gautier figures could, within the confines of anatomy, be quite tender, as in the fine plate in Anatomie generale... of a new- born child, asleep but dissected, lying close to the recently-delivered mother, whose uterus has been opened for display” (Roberts & Tomlinson pp. 524-25).
Gautier d´Agoty (1717-1785):This name is associated with some of the most groundbreaking efforts in print-making of the 18th century, he studied under LeBlon briefly, from whom he learned the basis of colour impressions.
“His colored mezzotints are often of very striking artistic power” (Garrison).
The plates “will always retain their value in the history of art and especially in the history of anatomic illustrations” (Choulant).
“Jacques Gautier d'Agoty was a color mezzotint engraver and painter. He began to engrave in 1736 and developed a theory for color mezzotints derived from that of LeBlon, under whom he studied briefly in 1738. His theories, unlike LeBlon's, tended to refute Newton's concepts of color, upon which LeBlon had based his three-color system. Gautier d'Agoty held chat the fundamental colors were black, blue, yellow, red, and white [the fifth color supplied by the white paper]. His early work was hampered in part by the patent on a similar color process held in France by LeBlon, but following LeBlon's death in 1741, Gaurier d'Agoty obtained a thirty-year patent on his process. Based upon his introduction of the fourth black plate, in 1749 he called himself ´Inventeur de l'Art de graver et imprimer les Tableaux à quatre couleurs.´
His color process was used to illustrate several anatomical works, botanical studies, and natural histories. He also reproduced sacred and mythological subjects and some portraits. Some of his color plates do not seem to be based on existing paintings but were taken directly from his own compositions. In the preparation of his later plates, he was assisted by his sons.” (D. R. R., and Dale R. Roylance. “The Eighteenth Century: Search for Tone.” Yale Art GalleryBulletin 27/28 (1962): 24–34).
Anatomie de la couleur. L’invention de l’estampe en couleurs, Paris, BnF, 1996, n° 103; Choulant-Frank, p.271; Wellcome II, p.97.
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