Myologie Complette en Couleur et Grandeur Naturelle

Joseph Guichard Duverney

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jacques-Fabien Gautier-Dagoty received a royal license for his technique of four-plate color printing in mezzotint, a process closely derived from the three-plate method of his teacher, Jacob Christoph Le Blon (to which Gautier-Dagoty added a plate printed in black or brown). Although he also made prints that reproduced paintings or depicted notable figures, Gautier-Dagoty's special interests lay in anatomy, botany, and zoology—fields that would be revolutionized by the publication of accurate color illustrations. He founded the first French illustrated scientific journal, and prepared large-scale publications such as Myologie complète en couleur et grandeur naturelle a treatise on the anatomy of muscles.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art