Anatomy.- Salvage (Jean-Galbert) Anatomie du Gladiateur combattant, applicable aux beaux arts, first edition, deluxe copy on special thick paper with counterproof plates, half-title, engraved plate entitled "L'art s'illustre par la science", one preliminary leaf misbound, 16 superb engraved plates printed in black and sepia, each accompanied by the corresponding counterproof plates bound opposite, 5 engraved plates printed solely in black, likewise with corresponding counterproofs bound opposite, printed on fine paper, some plates with Salvage's own oval ink stamp in lower corner (monogram JGSE above D.MDne, Lugt 4565), occasional marginal soiling, a few leaves with minor marginal tears/repairs, modern red morocco-backed marbled boards by Albert Valat of Montpellier, spine gilt, g.e., folio (544 x 376mm.), Paris, chez l'Auteur, de l'Imprimerie de Mame, 1812.

⁂ A magnificent deluxe copy in exceptional condition. "The year 1812 saw the publication of one of the more remarkable illustrated books ever to appear in France. Titled 'Anatomie du gladiateur combattant,' it was inspired by contemporary rhetoric celebrating the role of the arts in the new post-revolutionary society. At the same time, it was a magnificent display of hard-won knowledge of human anatomy and a tribute to medical science" (Jean-Galbert Salvage and His Anatomie du gladiateur combattant: Art and Patronage in
Post-Revolutionary France, Raymond Lifchez in: Metropolitan Museum Journal 44, 2009, p. 163).

Salvage (1772-1813) was an army surgeon, anatomist, and skilled draftsman. He created three monumental écorchés, i.e. casts of human bodies represented without skin. He used the bodies of soldiers "in their prime" who were killed in duels, rather than patients who died as a result of illness. Salvage arranged his cadavers in the same pose as the Borghese Gladiator sculpture and meticulously worked out the skeletal and muscular anatomy. Salvage's écorchés are preserved at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts.

This copy is enhanced by the inclusion of the counterproof plates, which show an important stage between Salvage's original drawings and the finished engraving. A counterproof is a proof of a proof - the artist takes an impression from the engraved plate and while it is still wet lays another piece of paper over it and runs it through the press, creating a counterproof. Because the original proof is the mirror image of the plate, the counterproof is the mirror image of a mirror image, so that the image is aligned the same way it is on the plate. The artist can draw on the counterproof and work from that to the plate without having to reverse the image. The counterproofs here do not show the titles or captions, which were added later.