The Kneeling Figure

The sole of the foot, in colour mezzotint.

Work: colour mezzotint
Maker: Jacques Fabien Gautier d’Agoty
Date: 1759
Held by: Published Paris, 1759 · Wellcome Collection

Format

The full-resolution scan, colour-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.

Size

$29.00

The story

A flayed figure kneels with his back to us so that the sole of the left foot faces the viewer, muscles and tendons of leg and foot laid out in warm red against a dark drape. Gautier d'Agoty printed it in Paris in 1759 by a colour mezzotint process learned in the workshop of Jacob Christoph Le Blon, who used red, yellow and blue; Gautier d'Agoty added black, the Wellcome Collection's note records, and claimed the process as his own invention. The result is closer to a painting than any engraving.

See it on your wall

The plate, in the room it was made for

The Kneeling Figure, printed large and framed — in the consulting room, the study, the library. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.

About this reproduction

A reproduction of colour mezzotint — Jacques Fabien Gautier d’Agoty, 1759 — from the copy held by Published Paris, 1759 · Wellcome Collection. The source. The work is centuries out of copyright and in the public domain.
Printed faithful to that source scan. We do not re-colour it, complete it, or interpret it; the plate you receive is the plate as it survives.
Printed to order on EMA matte art paper, 200gsm. Framed editions sit in a box frame under acrylic, with no mount.
Colour-managed to the source; the tone of the paper and the ink is the engraver’s, not ours.
Ships in 5–10 business days.
If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.

Why our plates cost more than a poster: a poster is a mass run on wood-pulp stock, colour-corrected to whatever flattered the press that day. This is one sheet, pulled for you, at a size where the engraver’s hand is visible — the linework, the tonal work, the lettering — on a matte sheet that shows every line without glare.

From the same collection