A. J. Defehrt

A. J. Defehrt (1723 - 1774), French Engraver and draughtsman, specialising in book illustrations, worked much for Diderot's Encyclopédie. Departed in 1769 for Copenhagen and died in Denmark.

A. J. Defehrt, , engraver in sweet carving born in Huring who worked in Paris, where the plates were probably opened. These drawings, conserved in the Museum of History of the City of Barcelona, ​​constitute, by their singularity and extraordinary formal elegance, one of the most important artistic manifestations of the Catalan art of the XVIII century. His compositions recall the typology of theatrical scenery with which Tramulles was very familiar with its connection with the main theater of the city. This edition constitutes a very important milestone for the history of the Catalan engraving of the eighteenth century and a unique contribution to the panorama of the Spanish illustrated book of this period.

A. J. Defehrt,pivotal work in the history of eighteenth-century Catalan engraving. It illustrates the celebrations held by the guilds and professional associations five years before, when the Bourbon Charles III arrived in the city from Naples on his way to Madrid to be crowned King of Spain. Myths and allegories take on special importance in the way the orderly night-time parades are represented in many of the engravings. Despite the links these engravings show to Renaissance and Baroque iconography of ephemeral celebrations, they evoke another sumptuous figurative world, one that is refined and imbued with a rococo spirit.

A. J. Defehrt, was in charge of the publishing company; However, despite the fact that the Mask adopted the book format - given that it includes printed text and graphic image - it was never integrated into the traditional circulation circuit of printed works, since it was not intended for the consumption of readers of The time was not published with a lucrative purpose, but was a gift for King Bourbon Carlos III. The album consists of a total of twenty-six leaves, twelve of which display images to the whole page. From this group is differentiated the first sheet, which makes the function of front or frontispiece of the work. The other eleven reproduce in a narrative form the carnival procession.
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