Jacques-Fabien GAUTIER D'AGOTY (1711 - 1786): Saturn and Philyra - c. 1743
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SOLD
Colour mezzotint printed with four plates, 314 x 240 mm. Inventaire du Fonds Français 23, Singer 231, De Laborde p. 385.
Inscription engraved in the lower right-hand corner of the plate: Dapres Ivle Romain Gravé par I. Gautier en couleur. [After Giulio Romano, engraved by I. Gautier in colour]
Very fine impression printed on watermarked laid paper (part of a Maltese cross in a circle of pearls). Very good condition. Small margins all around the platemark (sheet: 335 x 265 mm).
The January 1743 volume of the Mercure de France announced that ‘Sieur Gautier, the only Printmaker who had the permission by the King, in the field of coloured Prints, or printed Paintings, has just published four new Pieces. The first after the Parmesan, representing the Daybreak, from the Cabinet of M. l'Abbé Desfontaines, & its counterpart, the Sunrise, after Giulio Romano, from the same Cabinet, of the same size as the originals, which are 12. inches high by nine inches wide.’ Saturn and Philyra is most likely one of the two prints advertised. Its counterpart is Apollon ou le levé du Soleil (see the impression kept at the INHA).
During this period, Jacques-Fabien Gautier d'Agoty used the technique of the mezzotint printed in colour to reproduce paintings, both his own and those of other artists, such as Salvator Rosa, Carracci, Coypel, de Troye, Correggio, etc. The very fact of offering prints in pairs, as is the case here, was a way for Gautier d'Agoty to appeal to a clientele that was fond of paintings, as Kristel Stiglitz points out: "It was conventional in eighteenth-century houses to hang pictures of a similar size, which were often by the same artist, together as pairs. Printed paintings could serve the same purpose." (Colorful impressions, p. 11)
Impressions of the first colour prints by Jacques-Fabien Gautier d'Agoty are rare. This is certainly due to the complexity of their creation. From 1746 onwards, he abandoned the engraving of printed pictures and devoted himself to producing plates of human anatomy, zoology and botany, which were a great success and for which he is still renowned today.