Muscles of the back: partial dissection of a seated woman, showing the bones and muscles of the back and shoulder. Colour mezzotint by J.F. Gautier d'Agoty, 1745/1746.

  • Gautier Dagoty, 1717-1785.
Date:
[1745/1746]
Reference:
572024i
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Muscles of the back: partial dissection of a seated woman, showing the bones and muscles of the back and shoulder. Colour mezzotint by J.F. Gautier d'Agoty, 1745/1746. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Source: Wellcome Collection.

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Description

Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty, published a series of anatomy plates using a colour mezzotint process which had first been developed by Jacob Christoph Le Blon (1667-1741), in whose workshop Gautier d'Agoty had served as an assistant. In 1737, Le Blon obtained a copyright to publish a complete colour anatomy atlas, which never appeared. To Le Blon's process, which used the three colours of red, yellow and blue, Gautier d'Agoty added black and claimed the process to be his own invention. The plates are after dissections prepared by J. F. Duverney (d. 1748), a Parisian surgeon and demonstrator of anatomy and surgery at the Jardin du Roy. According to the "Avertisement" the principle aim of the Myologie complette was to "facilitate the study of Anatomy for all sorts of people, above all students of medicine, surgery, painting and sculpture, all of those who, in a word, have the health and study of the human body as their subject."

Publication/Creation

[Paris] : [Gautier], [1745/1746]

Physical description

1 print : mezzotint, printed in colours ; platemark 60.6 x 45.6 cm

Lettering

Demontrée par M. Duverney, p. et gravée par J. Gautier Muscles and bones numbered for a key Bears number: Fig. 14

References note

H.W. Singer, 'Der Vierfarbendruck in der Gefolgschaft Jakob Christoffel Le Blons mit Oeuvre-Verzeichnissen der Familie Gautier-Dagoty, J. Roberts, J. Ladmirals und C. Lasinios', Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft, 1917, 10: 177-199, 301-314; 1918, 11: 52-57, no. 14
Michèle Hébert, Edmond Pognon, Yves Bruand, and Yves Sjöberg, Inventaire du fonds français, graveurs du XVIIIe siècle, Bibliothèque nationale, Département des estampes, tome X, Paris 1968, pp. 53-55, Jacques-Fabien Gautier d'Agoty no. 45 ('(32-51). Pl. pour : Myologie complète en couleur et grandeur naturelle, composée de l'Essai et de la suite de l'Essai d'Anatomie, en tableaux imprimés. Ouvrage unique, utile et nécessaire aux étudiants et amateurs de cette science. — Paris, le Sieur Gautier, seul Graveur Privilégié du Roy, rue St-Honoré, au coin de la rue St-Nicaise; Quillau Père; Quillau Fils; Lamesle; 1746. … H.W. Singer, nos 1-20. … 45. Femme vue de dos, disséquée de la nuque au sacrum pour montrer les muscles, la tête en profil perdu à dr., traitée au naturel ainsi que les hanches. Le long du bord dr., de h. en bas: "Fig. 14e. Démontrée [etc.]." H. 0m605 x L. 0m460. Cette planche est "appelée par nos contemporains l'Ange anatomique parce qu'un gracieux profil féminin y apparaît au-dessus des muscles du dos écartés comme une grande aile." (A. Hahn et Paule Dumaître, op. cit. [Histoire de la médecine et du livre médical (Paris, 1962)], p. 305; reprod. pl. III, face à la p. 304.)')
Florian Rodari, Anatomie de la couleur. L'invention de l'estampe en couleurs, exh. cat., Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1996, no. 99 and p. 117 (as known to some by the sobriquet "L'ange anatomique")

Reference

Wellcome Collection 572024i

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