BUFFON, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte, L'Ecureuil de Madagascar, Histoire Naturelle, illustrator, De Sevres, Jacques, Hand Coloured Copperplate Engraving by Tardieu, c1780

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De Madagascar (Squirrel)

BUFFON, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788)

Buffon was a popular scientist with the public during his lifetime but had many critics in ln learned circles mostly because he continuously challenged the known "authorities" in chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Geology and Theology.

Buffon, at the age of 25 inherited his mothers fortune and was obligued to assume responsibility for the family's Estates in Montbard. Aside from this, his wealth allowed him to move socially in the highest political circles in Paris. He impressed the scientific community with his professional expertise: as an expert in Botany, he advised the lord of the Admiralty on suitable species of wood to be used in the construction of warships

Buffon translated Newton's Method of Fluxions and Infinite series into French and was appointed to the court of the French King to the post of Head of the Parisian, Jardin du Roi. 

In later years, he devoted himself more extensively to questions of Natural History which was his passion. He was responsible for enlarging the Royal gardens under the name, "Jardins de Plantes" and he assembled a unique collection the "Cabinet d'Histoire Naturelle du Roi"

These copperplate engravings are from a French encyclopedic collection of some planned 50 volumes of works whose publication extends from the first volume which was printed in 1749 through to 1804. 

Publication of these volumes led to conflict with the church because of the works advocacy of a theory that earth arose through a collision of a comet with the sun and that the motion of the planets was to be explained not by divine intervention, but by the laws of mechanics.

Buffon was responsible for the formulation of the hypothesis that all life developed from tiny particles and that further development was influenced by climate change. on the basis of research in comparative anatomy, he conjectured, among other things, that apes and human beings have the same ancestry. 

36 Volumes of his works were published in his lifetime and these were among the most widely disseminated works of "The Age of Enlightenment" and they bought Buffon international renoun