Traité de Myologie by Gautier Agoty
A Treasure of the National Library of France: Traité de Myologie, engraved by Gautier d'Agoty in 1746.
This work is interesting from two perspectives: the history of publishing and the history of medicine.
Jacques-Fabien Gautier-Dagoty (1716-1785) perfected the technique of three-colour printing invented by Jakob Christof Le Blon (1667-1741), by adding a fourth plate (black), to increase the sharpness of the main features of the model and incorporate shadows. The procedure gave rise to the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and key [black]) four-colour printing process, which is still used today. His 1746 "Traité de Myologie" is a study of the muscles of the human body spread over 20 anatomical plates that, according to the Surrealists, displayed "convulsive beauty". The plates include the famous cutaway view of a woman’s back entitled, "The Flayed Angel" : "A pretty woman with naked or rather flayed shoulders, the skin pinned back on each side. Horror and visceral splendour" (Jacques Prévert).