CAYLUS, Comte de & MAJAULT, Michel Lot n° 17

Memoir on encaustic and wax painting. Geneva and sold in Paris, Vve Tilliard, Saugrain et Lamy, Barrois, 1780. In-8, portrait, (1) ff, 133 pp., (2) ff, 2 p. h. t., br., dummy cover def. Resale of the original 1755 edition with relay title. Great-great-grandson of Agrippa d'Aubigné and son of the Marquise de Caylus, a memorialist at the end of the reign of Louis XIV, Anne-Claude, Count de Caylus (1692-1765), published in 1755 his memoir on encaustic painting and wax painting when he had just initiated the publication (1752/1767) of his vast "Recueil des antiquités". One of the first scholars to approach archaeology from a scientific perspective, Caylus, based on the writings of Pliny the Elder and with the help of Dr. Majault, gave his recipes for four supposedly ancient wax painting processes, a technique that has since been forgotten and unrelated to those of fresco and oil painting. Although Caylus' work aroused enormous interest in the artistic world, it was not until the 19th century that painters put this delicate technique back into practice, which had the advantage of abolishing the shiny effects of oil painting. It was then, until the painter Delacroix, adopted to decorate many religious buildings.