Medical & Anatomy · 18th century
€ 340
One of a kind: this is the sheet in the photographs. Ships from Langweer, the Netherlands.
Hardly any age-related toning. Please study scan carefully.
Plate : 'Chirurgie, Frontispice.' (Surgery, frontispiece).
This plate shows Hippocrates with a Rod of Asclepius, a naked woman cutting a branch, young children playing, a stork flying over, a rooster depicted on the pedestal, trees and boats in the background. Copperplate engraving / etching on a verge type hand-laid paper.
This antique print originates from: 'The Encyclopedie ou Dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts et des metiers, par une Societe de Gens de lettres.', which was published under the direction of Diderot and d'Alembert. The original folio ed. contained 17 volumes of text and 11 volumes of plates and was published between 1751 and 1772. It contained 72,000 articles written by more than 140 contributors. This encyclopdia was a massive reference work for the arts and sciences, as well as a means to propagate the ideas of the French Enlightment. The impact of this encyclopedia was enormous. This plate is from the 4to edition published by Pellet, Imprimeur-Libraire in Geneva, 1779.
Artists and Engravers: Denis Diderot (1713-1784) was a French philosopher, art critic and writer. Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1717-1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist and philosopher. This plate by Benard.
More observations: On the right, a female figure, symbolic of surgery, prunes dry branches of a tree. In the centre, a statue of Aesculapius, with a rooster and a raven on the plinth. Background left, an infant, symbolic of orthopaedics, straightens a crooked tree, whereas another infant, probably symbolic of bloodletting, drains fluid from a tree. In the foreground, infants collect and prepare herbs. A heron flies overhead. On the ground, numerous medicinal plants, among them aloe, plantin, rhubarb and others.
