“Biography of a Book: The Handmaid to the Arts, Vol. the Second”
As a record of the techniques of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century artists and artisans, Robert Dossie’s Handmaid to the Arts is an invaluable resource for the modern-day conservator confronted with objects that may have employed these methods.
Dossie, a resident of Westminster in the London area, was a gentleman— and likely an amateur scientist—who supported himself through his writing. His training as an apothecary reveals his scientific background, which he later applied to a wide range of studies for publication.
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