Summary

Author: Fougeroux de Bondaroy, (Auguste-Denis)

Title: Recherches sur les ruines d'Herculanum ; et sur les lumières qui peuvent en résulter, relativement à l'état présent des sciences & des arts ; avec un traité sur la fabrique des mosaiques.

Publication: Paris, Desaint 1770.

Price: £595

Reference: 09911

Full Description

Only edition of a scarce book on Herculaneum and mosaic production by Auguste-Denis Fougeroux de Bonderay (1732-1789). Fougeroux de Bonderay had visited Herculaneum and the associated museum of objects discovered there in 1763, before much had been published about it, and the present book is based on extensive notes taken by him at that time. His extensive description of the contents of the museum displays an unusual degree of interest in objects used by the Romans as tools or for other practical purposes, reflecting the fact that he was himself keenly interested in technical processes. In the second part of the book he offers a particularly full and authoritative discussion of the procedures involved in the manufacture of mosaics from Roman times onwards, and his remarks serve as a reminder that mosaic artists were still working on the decoration of the walls and ceilings of Roman churches in the middle years of the eighteenth century (he mentions on pp.186-192 a number of significant recent commissions for mosaics of this character). Cicognara 2672.