Charles Le Brun's (1619-1690) physiognomies
The first image is by Le Brun
The rest are from
Dissertation sur un traite de Charles Le Brun concernant le rapport de la physionomie humaine avec celle des animaux
by Louis-Jean-Marie Morel d'Arleux
originally published in 1806
"After the publication of Descartes's Passions of the Soul (1649), Le Brun spoke to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture on several occasions in 1668 on the subject of General Expression and the Expression of Passions. He illustrated his lectures with a series of drawings in which he used horizontal lines to demonstrate the distortions of the human face (face-on and in profile) under the influence of various emotions. In 1671, he gave a new lecture on physiognomy, the original of which is lost; we know of a summary by Nivelon, digests by Testelin (1696) and E. Picart (1698), and a "dissertation" by Morel d’Arleux, printed as the introduction to his 1806 edition of Le Brun's plates. Le Brun addressed four specific points: the features of famous men of Antiquity and the relationship between their facial features and their personalities; human features compared to those of animals; the eyes and the eyebrows; and finally the human brain. " - Louvre Museum
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