Creator
Gautier d'Agoty, Jacques-Fabien.
Title
Chroa-génésie ou génération des couleurs, contre le système de Newton.
Coverage
Paris
Publisher
Antoine Boudet
Date
1750–51
Description
2 volumes.
Supralibros, marks of ownership stamped on the cover of a book, were frequent through the nineteenth century, particularly on bindings of aristocratic or ecclesiastical provenance. Both covers of these volumes, bound in full red morocco in the eighteenth century, bear the gilt coat of arms of Jeanne Antoinette Poisson Le Normant d’Étioles, marquise de Pompadour; they appeared as lot no. 287 in the auction catalogue of her library sold in Paris in 1765. The text, a testament to the marquise’s catholic reading tastes, is a first edition of Jacques-Fabien Gautier d’Agoty’s important treatise on color theory. In Chroa-génésie, Gautier d’Agoty attacks Newton, and attempts to establish his claim of having invented color printing. A canny and tireless entrepreneur, Gautier d’Agoty successfully sued his competitors, and in 1747 he obtained a thirty-year exclusive privilege for color printing in France. He was the first to print anatomical plates in color on a large scale, using and refining the multiple-plate process.
Supralibros, marks of ownership stamped on the cover of a book, were frequent through the nineteenth century, particularly on bindings of aristocratic or ecclesiastical provenance. Both covers of these volumes, bound in full red morocco in the eighteenth century, bear the gilt coat of arms of Jeanne Antoinette Poisson Le Normant d’Étioles, marquise de Pompadour; they appeared as lot no. 287 in the auction catalogue of her library sold in Paris in 1765. The text, a testament to the marquise’s catholic reading tastes, is a first edition of Jacques-Fabien Gautier d’Agoty’s important treatise on color theory. In Chroa-génésie, Gautier d’Agoty attacks Newton, and attempts to establish his claim of having invented color printing. A canny and tireless entrepreneur, Gautier d’Agoty successfully sued his competitors, and in 1747 he obtained a thirty-year exclusive privilege for color printing in France. He was the first to print anatomical plates in color on a large scale, using and refining the multiple-plate process.
Source
Gift of Jonathan A. Hill, 2003.