3. Jacques Gamelin – Arise, Ye Dead, And Come To The Judgment – 1651
A quite unforgettable image. The French painter and engraver Jacques Gamelin entered the Art Académie Royale de Toulouse under the patronage of Baron de Puymaurin, a wealthy industrialist of the era. Gamelin’s father died and he returned to Toulouse. Using his inheritance, Gamelin began work on the most important project of his career Nouveau recueil d’ostéologie et de myologie. With the assistance of local magistrates, Gamelin was given access to the corpses of executed criminals, which he both dissected and sketched. Then, he hired two engravers, Jacques Lavallée (active 1790-1830) and an artist known only as Martin, to assist him in converting these drawings to prints. After two years, Gamelin released his masterpiece in an edition of 200 copies, priced at forty livres each (nine livre may be the cost to dress a man at that period). The book did not sell and Gamelin went bankrupt. Most of the unsold copies were either pulped or dismembered.