Portrait of Philippe Claude André de Thubières, Comte de Caylus

Jean Baptiste André Gautier Dagoty was a member of an artistic family; he, his father, and his brothers were all printmakers. His father, Jacques Fabien, at one time assisted the printmaker Jakob Christoffel Le Blon, whose rival he later became. All the Gautier-Dagotys used Le Blon' s method of printing mezzotints from multiple plates to achieve varied color effects, as is demonstrated in this portrait, printed in four colors on plates that had been rocked extensively to create a rich and painterly effect.