Colour palette

Artist’s palette with colours, arranged according to the author’s colour theory. Each pigment is lettered to correspond with a key in the supporting text.

Frontispiece plate from the monograph Lettres concerning le nouvel art de graver et d’imprimer les tableaux, by J.F. Gautier-d’Agoty (J.Bullot, Paris, 1749).

Inscribed above: ‘Sisteme practique des Couleurs du Sr. Gautier’. Upper left: ‘Gautier sculp.’

Jacques Fabien Gautier-d’Agoty (1710-1781) French painter, pastelist, and engraver, developed a four-plate colour mezzotint printing process, often used for anatomical illustration.