GAMELIN (Jacques). Nouveau Recueil d'Ostéologie et de Myologie dessiné d'après nature... pour l'utilité des sciences et des arts, divisé en deux parties. Toulouse J. F. Desclassan, 1779. 2 parts in one volume, half brown basane, spine ribbed (Binding of the period). 25 leaves (title, portrait, explanation of plates on 2 columns), 41 anatomical plates - title, 12 ff. of text (on 2 col.), 41 anatomical plates. First edition and first printing of the plates. Only 200 copies of this unique edition were printed. The illustration consists of two engraved titles illustrated with vignettes by Gamelin engraved by his pupils Martin and Lavalée, 8 other vignettes in the text, a frontispiece portrait and 82 plates of anatomy or various scenes by the same artists. The illustrations in the volume are highly varied, with bones and muscles depicted with medical rigour contrasting with poses that resemble academic painting or highly expressive macabre scenes that are reminiscent of the fantastic. The 10 vignettes belong to the latter category, with allegorical compositions inspired by seventeenth-century books of emblems. This ambitious project, for which Gamelin had set up his own dissection workshop, was a commercial failure. "[...] the emotional and fantastical elements in his images have led him to be seen as a precursor of Goya, in fact, the young Goya may have known or sutdied with Gamelin who taught in Rome during the time Goya was there", says Norman. Most of the copies described have, in place of (as in the Norman copy) or in addition to the portrait (Vente de Médecine, Drouot 30 Oct. 2009, no. 475), a frontispiece inspired by Rembrandt, which is missing from this copy. Worn binding, scattered foxing, splits in the margins, paper missing from a corner of the first title (without affecting the subject), double split and stain to a plate in the second part, a few yellowed leaves, wet stamp on the title. Norman, 872 - Waller, I, p. 157.