J. D’ALEMBERT
date: label: date made
content: 1777
notes: label: Description
content: This half-length engraved portrait of Jean LeRond d’Alembert (1717-1783) shows this French mathematician and philosophe sitting with quill pen in one hand and dividers in the other. Papers, books, and other drawing instruments are strewn across the desk in front of him, and more books, a rolled chart, and a globe sit on the cabinet behind. The text at bottom reads: “Dessiné par M. R. Jollain, Peintre du Roi, et Gravé par B. L. Henriquez, Graveur de S. M. I. de / toutes les Russies, et de l’Academie Imperiale des Beaux Arts de St. Petersbourg.”
label: Description
content: This image was published in Paris in 1777, along with similar portraits of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Diderot, the other principal authors of the <i>Encyclopédie</i>. The prints were commissioned by Charles-Joseph Panckoucke, the Paris bookman who was then producing a <i>Supplément</i> to the <i>Encyclopédie</i>. They sold for three francs each. Nicholas-René Jollain was an artist in Paris. Benoît-Louis Henriquez was an engraver in Paris.
label: Description
content: Ref: Thomas L. Hankins, <i>Jean d’Alembert. Science and the Enlightenment</i> (Oxford, 1970).
label: Description
content: George B. Watts, “The Supplément and the Table Analytique et Rainsonée of the Encyclopédie,” <i>The French Review</i> 28 (1954): 4-19, on 16.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: France: Île-de-France, Paris
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
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content: Science & Mathematics
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content: Prints from the Physical Sciences Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.329189
label: accession number
content: 280072
label: catalog number
content: 329189
objectType: label: Object Name
content: print
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 14 in x 9 1/2 in; 35.56 cm x 24.13 cm