Anne-Claude, Philippe de Tubieres, de Grimoard, de Pestels, de Levi, Count de, Marquis d'Esternay, Baron de Bransac, was born at Paris in October 1692. He was the eldest of the two sons of John Count de Caylus, lieutenant-general of the armies of the king of France, and of the marchioness de Villette. His father and mother were very careful of the education of their son. The former instructed him in the profession of arms and in bodily exercises; the latter watched over and fostered the virtues of his mind, and this delicate task she discharged with singular success. The countess was the aunt of Madame de Maintenon, and remarkable alike for the solidity of her understanding and the charms of her wit. She was the author of the agreeable book entitled, The Recollections of Madame de Caylus, of which Voltaire published an elegant edition. The amiable qualities of the mother appeared in the son, but they appeared with a bold and military air. In his natural temper he was gay and sprightly, having a taste for pleasure, a strong passion for independence, and an invincible aversion to the servitude of a court. Count de Caylus was only twelve years of age when his father died at Brussels in 1704. After finishing his exercises, he entered into the corps of the Mousquetaires; and in his first campaign, in the year 1709, he distinguished himself so much by his valour, that Louis XIV. commended him before all the court, and rewarded him with an ensigncy in the gens-d'armerie. In 1711 he commanded a regiment of dragoons, which was called by his own name, and signalized himself at the head of it in Catalonia. In 1713 he was present at the siege of Fribourg, where he was exposed to imminent danger in the bloody attack of the covered way. The peace of Rastadt having left him in a state of inactivity ill suited to his natural temper, his vivacity soon led him to travel into Italy; and his curiosity was greatly excited by the wonders of that country, where antiquity is still fruitful, and produces so many objects to improve the taste and to excite the admiration. After a year's absence, he returned to Paris with so strong a passion for travelling and for antiquities, that he resolved to quit the army, and to devote himself entirely to these pursuits.

He had no sooner left the service of Louis than he set out for the Levant; and, having arrived at Smyrna, proceeded to Constantinople, where he made some stay. He next visited Greece, and other countries of the East rich in historical recollections or in ancient monuments; exposed himself to fatigue, the inclemency of the weather, contagion, and even the cupidity of brigands, in order to gratify his desire of knowledge; visited the ruins of Ephesus, including those of Colophon and the temple of Diana, under the escort of robbers belonging to a troop or band called Caracayali; returned to Byzantium by the Dardanelles; and lastly repaired to Adrianople, where the sultan, Mustapha II., then resided. But in February 1717 he was recalled from the East by the tenderness of his mother. From that time he only left France to make two excursions to London. The Academy of Painting and Sculpture admitted him as an honorary member in the year 1731; and the count, whose ambition it was to deserve such a distinction, spared neither his labour, his credit, nor his fortune, to instruct, assist, and animate the artists. He wrote the lives of the most celebrated painters and engravers who had done honour to this illustrious academy; and, in order to extend the limits of the art, he collected, in three different works, new subjects for painting which he had met with in the works of the ancients.

Such was his passion for antiquity, that he wished to have had it in his power to bring the whole of it to life again. He saw with regret that the works of the ancient painters were effaced and destroyed almost as soon as they were drawn from the subterranean mansions where they had been buried. But a fortunate accident furnished him with the means of showing the composition and the colouring of the pictures of ancient Rome. The coloured drawings which Pietro S. Bartoli had taken there from antique pictures happening to fall into his hands, he had them engraved; and, before he enriched the king of France's cabinet with this production, he published an edition of it at his own expense. It is perhaps the most extraordinary book of antiquities that ever will appear, the whole being painted with a purity and precision which are altogether inimitable. There were only thirty copies published, and there is no reason to expect that there will hereafter be any more.

Count de Caylus was at the same time engaged in an enterprise not less illustrative of Roman greatness, and still more interesting to the French nation. Colbert had formed the design of engraving the Roman antiquities which are still to be seen in the southern provinces of France; and by his orders Mignard the architect had made drawings of them, which Count de Caylus had the good fortune to recover. He therefore resolved to finish the work begun by Colbert, and to dedicate it to that great minister; and so much had he this enterprise at heart, that he was employed in it during his last illness, and warmly recommended it to M. Mariette.

In 1742 Count Caylus was admitted as an honorary member of the Academy of Belles Lettres; and then it was that he seemed to have found the place for which nature designed him. The study of literature now became his ruling passion; he consecrated to it his time and his fortune; he even renounced his pleasures to give himself wholly up to the object of making some discovery in the field of antiquity. But amidst the fruits of his research and invention nothing afforded him so much gratification as his discovery of encaustic painting. A description of Pliny, too concise to give a clear view of the matter to an ordinary reader, suggested the idea of this art to M. de Caylus. He availed himself of the friendship and skill of M. Magault, a physician in Paris, and an excellent chemist; and by repeated experiments discovered the secret of incorporating wax with various tints and colours, and of rendering it manageable with the pencil. Pliny has made mention of two kinds of encaustic painting practised by the ancients, one of which was executed with wax on various substances, and the other upon ivory with hot punches of iron. It was the former kind, however, that Count de Caylus had the merit of reviving; and M. Muntz afterwards made many experiments in order to carry it to perfection.

In the hands of Count Caylus, literature and the arts lent each other mutual aid. But it would be endless to give an account of all his works. He published above forty dissertations in the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles-Lettres. To the artists he was particularly attentive; and in order to prevent their falling into mistakes from ignorance of costume, which the ablest of them have sometimes done, he founded a prize of five hundred livres, the object of which was to explain, by means of authors and monuments, the usages of ancient nations. In order that he might enjoy with the whole world the treasures which he had collected, he caused them to be engraved, and gave a learned description of them in a work which he embellished with eight hundred copperplates.

The strength of his constitution seemed to give him hopes of a long life; but a humour settling in one of his legs, entirely destroyed his health, and he expired on the 5th of September 1765. His character is thus drawn by a French biographer:—"A severe probity, a rooted aversion to flattery, great indifference about honours, a singular simplicity, perhaps sometimes a little despotism in his opinions, formed the basis of his character. In him young artists found both a guide and a friend; and with a discernment and a delicacy still more rare than generosity, he anticipated the wants of those whose progress would have been otherwise retarded by the narrowness of their means. Naturally beneficent, he sometimes amused himself when he met a pauper whose appearance indicated probity, by giving him a louis to get changed, and then concealing himself where he could enjoy the poor creature's embarrassment when the person from whom he received the gold was not to be found. Caylus, indeed, never knew any other luxury than that of liberality. His dress, in particular, was so plain that, having one day stopped before a shop on which a sign-painter was painting a figure of St Francis, the latter, taking him for one of his comrades, asked his opinion respecting the work, which Caylus instantly gave him, and which delighted the painter so much, that he put the pallet and pencil into the hand of his new acquaintance, and begged him to retouch the picture. Caylus mounted the ladder, and having succeeded to the entire satisfaction of the painter, the latter wished to take him to a neighbouring tavern, when the carriage of the Count arrived, and his footman opened the door for his master. The painter of saints and signs was stupefied with astonishment; but Caylus, taking him by the hand, said, Au revoir, camarade, ce sera pour la première fois que nous nous rencontrerons."

The numerous literary works of Count Caylus may be divided into three classes; humorous pieces and romances; productions relative to the fine arts; and those which treat exclusively of antiquities. I. The first class consists of, 1. Les Ecossaises, ou les Œufs de Pâques, Troyes, 1739 et 1745, 12mo; 2. Histoire de Guillaume, cocher, 12mo; 3. Féeries Nouvelles, Paris, 1742, 2 vols. 12mo; 4. Soirées du Bois de Boulogne, Paris, 1742, 12mo; 5. Étrennes de la St Jean, in conjunction with Moncrieff, Crebillion the younger, Duclos, La Chaussée, Voisenon, and others; 6. Contes Orientaux, 1743, 12mo; 7. Histoire de Mlle. Cronel, dite Frétillon (Mlle. Clairon), Paris 1743, 12mo; 8. Histoires Nouvelles et Mémoires ramassés, Paris, 1743; 9. Quelques Aventures des Bals de Bois, 1745, 12mo; 10. Cinq Contes des Fées, 1745, 12mo; 11. Recueil de ces Messieurs, 1745, 12mo; 12. Les Manteaux, Paris, 1746, 12mo; 13. Les Fêtes roulantes et les Regrets des petites rues, 1747, 12mo; 14. Mémoires de l'Académie des Colporteurs, 1748, 8vo; 15. Le Calsandre fidèle, translated from the Italian of Marini, Paris, 1740, 3 vols. 12mo; 16. Histoire du Vaillant Chevalier Tyranné Blanc, translated from the Spanish, London, 1775, 3 vols. 12mo; with some other pieces which are attributed to him. II. His works relating to the fine arts are, 1. Nouveaux Sujets de Peintre et de Sculpture, Paris, 1755, 12mo; 2. Tableaux tirés de l'Iliade, de l'Odyssée et de l'Énéide, avec des Observations générales sur le Costume, Paris, 1757, 8vo; 3. Histoire d'Hercule le Théban, Paris, 1758, 8vo; 4. Les Vies de Mignard et de Lemogne in the Recueil des premiers Peintres du Roi, Paris, 1752, 8vo; 5. Mémoire sur la Peinture de l'Encaustique, 1755, 8vo; 6. Description d'un tableau représentant la sacrifice d'Iphigénie, 1757, 12mo; 7. Vie d'Edme Bouchardon, Paris, 1762, 12mo. III. His works relative to antiquities are, 1. Recueil d'Antiquités Egyptiennes, Etrusques, Grecques, Romaines, et Gauloises, Paris, 1752, and the years following, 7 vols. 4to; 2. Numismata Aurea Imperatorum Romanorum, without date, 4to, very rare; Recueil de Médailles du Cabinet du Roi, no date, 4to, also very rare; 4. Dissertation sur le Papyrus, Paris, 1758, 4to, in the Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions; 5. Recueil de Peintures antiques, Paris, 1757, fol.