Jacques-Fabien Gautier-Dagoty received a royal license for his technique of four-plate color printing in mezzotint, a process closely derived from the three-plate method of his teacher, Jacob Christoph Le Blon (to which Gautier-Dagoty added a plate printed in black or brown). Although he also made prints that reproduced paintings or depicted celebrities, Gautier-Dagoty's special interests lay in anatomy, botany, and zoology—fields that would be revolutionized by the publication of accurate color illustrations. He founded the first French illustrated scientific journal, and prepared large-scale publications such as Myologie complète en couleur et grandeur naturelle, a treatise on the anatomy of muscles from which these views of the human head are taken.

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