Félix VICQ D'AZYR (1748-1794), anatomist and naturalist, pro - Lot 66

Lot 66
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Result : 3 500EUR
Félix VICQ D'AZYR (1748-1794), anatomist and naturalist, pro - Lot 66
Félix VICQ D'AZYR (1748-1794), anatomist and naturalist, professor at the Muséum, member of the Académie des sciences and the Académie française (he succeeded Buffon). Autograph letter signed, 6 pp. in-4, "May 14, year 2° of the Republic". Long letter of clarification to the illustrator of his latest work. "It is beyond doubt that all opinions are equal. No one can assign them a rank, mark a place for them. Thus, the art of anatomy and that of the draughtsman or painter have, by themselves, no pre-eminence over each other. A great painter is even presented, like a great poet, above all else, and it's me, an anatomist, who says this very willingly. Having established this, let's agree that there are certain types of work, certain kinds of undertaking, where an art, however free it may be in itself, finds itself, by the very nature of things, subordinate to another art. When a naturalist or anatomist calls a draughtsman, or if you like, a painter, to his aid, to represent what he has discovered, then he is no longer a painter obeying the impulses of his genius alone, creating, imagining; he is an artist faithfully expressing what he has been shown: and such is your position with regard to me [...]. This is a work of anatomy & I am an anatomist. How then can you say that you have associated me with your work? As you go on to say: I did the plates & I did the explanations & everything is compensated. Yes, I made the explanations; but I also made the model from which you drew; for the sections shown are the work of my scalpel; I followed your drawings; I guided them and corrected them a thousand times [...]. There is not a line in your plates that I have not examined and reviewed & you know very well that you have had no influence on my particular work. There is therefore no doubt that I am the true author of the work [...]. Now when, in such a position, in addition to the engraving costs, you are allocated half of the net proceeds from the sale of the explanations and plates, you must believe that there is a particular reason [...]. You say that the loss of eight hundred and some pounds that you have advanced is due to my negligence alone. To this I reply 1° that, wishing to hasten the completion of the work, we had agreed to work on the engraving of the brains and bones, and that the drawings I put in order remained in your cupboard, wasting more than a year, without you even remembering; 2° that if you had put as much zeal as I did, in the month of June & July 1792, we would have finished our work; that we prepared the spinal cord several times in vain [...]".
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