This is one of the anatomical prints by Jacques-Fabien Gautier
d'Agoty (1711-1785), whose claim to fame is his use of the unusual
technique of the colour mezzotint. The technique had been first
used by his teacher Jacob Christoph Le Blon (1667-1741), who
communicated it to his four pupils. After Le Blon's death, Gautier
d'Agoty applied for a privilege (similar to a patent) for the
procedure, and, controversially, received it. The technique
involved making four (originally three) copper plates for each
print: one for the black parts, one for the yellow, one for the red
and one for the blue. The green background, that is virtually
Gautier d'Agoty's trademark, shows where both the yellow plate and
the blue plate have been printed on to the sheet.
Like many anatomical representations of the human figure in the
16th-19th centuries, this one attempts to show the anatomy of the
living figure, not of the corpse. There were several reasons for
this convention: one was to make the work attractive to artists,
and another was to show the uses of the organs, not just their
topography. In his choice and performance of dissections, the
anatomist had to be something of a showman as well as a craftsman.
A present-day example of someone with these skills is Gunther von
Hagens, the mastermind of plastination technique and the Bodyworlds
exhibitions.