The Impossible Enchantment and Other Tales of Faerie by Comte de Caylus

The Comte de Caylus became an active member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture and of the Académie des Inscriptions. He was one of the first to consider archaeology as a science and had a considerable influence on Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the theorist of neoclassicism, who acknowledged his debt to him. He devoted much of his time to art, and the study and collection of antiquities. Still young, Caylus served in the army during the War of the Spanish Succession. After the peace of Rastatt was signed in 1714, he abandoned a promising military career to devote himself to the study of the arts. He travelled to England, Germany, Italy, accompanied the French ambassador to Constantinople and Greece, where he studied antiquities.

The Comte de Caylus – Early YearsĪnne Claude de Tubières-Grimoard de Pestels de Lévis was the only son of Marquise de Caylus, Anne III, of Tubières de Grimoard de Pestels de Caylus, lieutenant-general, and Marthe Le Valois de Villette, a niece of Madame de Maintenon and granddaughter of Agrippa d’Aubigné. When his father died, he was raised by his uncle, bishop of Auxerre. Caylus was also a painter and an engraver, and he is also credited with finding a new process to inlay colors in marble. The Comte de Caylus is credited with being the first to conceive archaeology as a scientific discipline. On September 5, 1765, French antiquarian, proto-archaeologist and man of letters Anne Claude de Tubières-Grimoard de Pestels de Lévis, comte de Caylus, marquis d’Esternay, baron de Bransac, was born.

The Impossible Enchantment and Other Tales of Faerie by Comte de Caylus