Various artist info Copy of A Template Astrolabe

Date: 1826 - 1829

Artist: Captain Jules Sebastian Cesar Dumont d'Urville

Engraver: Tatsu J    

Size: 340 x 525mm

Condition: Very good. The   darkening at the bottom is a photography is a  shadow only

Technique:Copperplate engraving

Price: $450

Description Elephant folio size on beautiful paper of the early 1800"s 

Provinance:

 The Voyage of the Astrolabe 1826 - 1829

The voyage of the Astrolabe was, arguably, France’s last and greatest scientific voyage of discovery by sail. Under the skilful leadership of Captain Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville, the Astrolabe and the Zélée would discover and claim Adélie land in Antarctica, amass a vast collection of botanical and zoological specimens, and advise the French government against attempting to create a colony at Akaroa in New Zealand.

Captain Dumont d'Urville was born in Normandy, France on 23 May 1790.  He made his first voyage to the Pacific as second-in-command to Duperrey in the Coquille in 1822-25, and returned in command of the Astrolabe (the Coquille renamed) in 1826-29. One of his intentions on this second voyage was to complete Cook’s chart of New Zealand. In doing so he skilfully navigated through French Pass in the Marlborough Sounds and established the existence of D’Urville Island which was named after him. His third and final voyage to the Pacific was with two ships, the Astrolabe and the Zélée, from 1837 to 1840. Charles Jacquinot captained the Zélée. Dumont d’Urville was promoted to rear-admiral on his return from this dangerous, heroic voyage of exploration.

Tragically, Dumont d’Urville had written only three volumes of the official account of the voyage and begun the fourth when he, his wife and son, were killed in a railway accident at Bellevue on 8 May 1842. The remaining volumes of Voyage au Pôle Sud et dans l’Oceanie (Voyage to the South Pole and Oceania) were completed by other members of the expedition. The Macmillan Brown Library is privileged to hold the entire set, in total 23 volumes and 7 atlases, written in French.  

 

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Jacobus Houbraken

Jacobus Houbraken (25 December 1698 – 14 November 1780) was a Dutch engraver born in DoDrdrecht, the son of the artist and biographer Arnold Houbraken (1660–1719), whom he assisted in producing a published record of the lives of artists from the Dutch Golden Age.

In 1707 he moved to Amsterdam, where for years he helped his father with his magnum opus, his art historical work The Great Theatre of Dutch Painters (1718–1721). When his father died he assisted his mother with the last proofs of the manuscript before publishing. With this project he started his portraits of Netherlandish celebrities, that are today, in many cases, the only likenesses left of these people. He was influenced by studying the works of Cornelis Cort, Jonas Suyderhoef, Gerard Edelinck and the Visschers whilst in Amsterdam

Houbraken devoted himself almost entirely to portraiture. His work became famous through his collaboration with the historian Thomas Birch and artist George Vertue, on the project entitled, Heads of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain, published in parts in London from 1743 to 1752, and from which our plates come
He died, aged 81 in Amsterdam.

His oeuvre of more than 400 portrait engravings form an important record for art provenance. His portraits were often set in an oval frame, with a subtitle with the subject's claim to fame. Under that in small letters, he placed his notes about the original oil portrait.

 

 

 

Charles Pyne
J Lowry Sculpt
DESCRIPTION
Depicts '97. Dasyure Viverrinus 98. Porcupine Ant Eater 99. Duck-billed Platypus' A couple of mall marks.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Artist
J Lowry After Charles Pyne
Method
Wood-Engraving With Later Hand-Colouring
Date
C1870
Size
270mm By 175mm (Sheet)
SKU
AU5777

 

 

New Vanity Fair, APE, SPY, .T. , FTD

Vanity Fair

If you're looking for a who's who of Victorian life then grabbing an old copy of Vanity Fair is a good place to start. The most successful 'Society Magazine' in the history of English journalism, the publication ran under the promise of presenting “a weekly show of Political, Social and Literary Wares”. For almost fifty years it invited readers to recognise their vanities and each week it would summarise world events, review West End shows and – most importantly – caricature its readers! From artists and authors to scholars and statesmen; the Vanity Fair caricature was an integral part of upper-class Victorian life.

Leslie Ward: SPY
The most prolific caricaturist at the magazine was undoubtedly Leslie 'Spy' Ward (1851–1922). From 1873 until 1911, Spy captured the people and personalities of Victorian society. During his time at the magazine, he produced more than half of its 2,387 caricatures and documented the best-known figures of the day. His work was immensely popular and he was largely responsible for reviving the tradition of the single figure caricature

These days, these types of drawings may feel like a bit of an oddity – they tend to lack the satirical edge we think of when we first think of caricatures. Yet despite this, Spy was undoubtedly one of the best of his era. His images may feel more complementary than insulting, but this is very telling of the time in which they were made.

Spy's era was that of the Victorian Empire. While we may have spoken already at some length about this period, it's not something that can easily be ignored. The Victorians played a huge role in shaping many aspects of Western culture and the social factors behind these developments are hugely relevant when looking at the context of anything that was created during this time. The era was one that was defined by huge class divides. It was a time of reputations and an era where respectability meant everything. Undoubtedly, these factors shaped the world of illustration too.

 

His early caricatures were closer to the types of satirical drawings we think of today. They have distorted proportions; large heads and exaggerated features. Yet the longer he stayed at the magazine, the more his reputation grew. Over the course of his career his style developed, moving further away from caricature and turning more into what he described as 'characteristic portraits'.

These conventional interpretations brought him great acclaim and his sustained productivity brought him great popularity. He might not have had the originality or artistic talents of some of his contemporaries, but his strong work ethic was worthy enough to justify his success. In 1918 he received a knighthood to highlight his 'good work to the citizens of the British Empire'

 

Carlo Pellegrini: APE

Carlo Pellegrini (25 March 1839 – 22 January 1889), who did much of his work under the pseudonym of Ape ([ˈaːpe], Italian for "bee"), was an artist who served from 1869 to 1889 as a caricaturist for Vanity Fair magazine, a leading journal of London society. He was born in Capua, then in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. His father came from an ancient land-owning family, while his mother was allegedly descended from the Medici. His work for the magazine made his reputation and he became its most influential artist.

It is not recorded how Pellegrini met Thomas Bowles, the owner of Vanity Fair magazine, but he quickly found himself employed by that publication and became its first caricaturist, originally signing his work as 'Singe' (French for "Monkey") and later, and more famously, as 'Ape' (Italian for "Bee"). Pellegrini's work for the magazine made his reputation and he became its most influential artist, in which his caricatures were to be printed for over twenty years, from January 1869 to April 1889. His 1869 caricature of Benjamin Disraeli was the first colour lithograph to appear in the magazine, and proved immensely popular. It was the first of a highly successful series of more than two thousand caricatures published by Vanity Fair. Although the later caricatures by Sir Leslie Ward are perhaps now more well known, those by 'Ape' are regarded by many collectors as being artistically and technically superior.

Apart from drawing his caricatures for the magazine, Pellegrini also attempted to set himself up as a portrait painter, but this venture met with limited success. Pellegrini met Degas in London in the 1870s, and in about 1876–77 painted his portrait, inscribed 'à vous/Pellegrini' (to you/Pellegrini). In return, Degas painted Pellegrini's portrait, similarly inscribed.

Pellegrini was a member of the Beefsteak Club in London and there met Whistler, who became a great influence on his work; indeed, he even attempted to paint portraits in the style of Whistler. Pellegrini was also a member of The Arts Club from 1874 until 1888.

Pellegrini was extremely careful about his appearance, and would wear immaculate white spats with highly polished boots. He grew long Mandarin-like fingernails, would never walk when he could ride, and had a limitless fund of amusing stories and eccentricities. He spoke broken-English, flaunted his homosexuality (at a time when it was dangerous to do so), and would often bring macaroni dishes to elegant dinner parties. He would refuse invitations to country houses out of fear of strange beds, and had a habit of keeping a cigar in his mouth as he slept.^[2]

He died of lung disease at his home, 53 Mortimer Street, near Cavendish Square in London. He is buried in St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green, London.

T.

Théobald Chartran (20 July 1849 – 16 July 1907) was a classical French propaganda painter.

As "T", he was one of the artists responsible for occasional caricatures of Vanity Fair magazine, specializing in French and Italian subjects. His work for Vanity Fair included Pope Leo XIII, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Umberto I of Italy, William Henry Waddington, all in 1878, Charles Gounod, Giuseppe Verdi, Ernest Renan, Jules Grévy, Napoléon Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte, Victor Hugo, Marshal MacMahon, Granier de Cassagnac, Louis Blanc, and Alexandre Dumas fils, all in 1879.

President Theodore Roosevelt's official portrait was originally commissioned to Théobald Chartran in 1902, but when Roosevelt saw the final product he hated it and hid it in the darkest corner of the White House. When family members called it the "Mewing Cat" for making him look so harmless, he had it destroyed and hired John Singer Sargent to paint a more masculine portrait.

Among Chartran's work is his portrait of René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec, the inventor of the stethoscope.

 

 

FTD

Frederick Thomas Dalton

Dalton was educated at Highgate School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He was assistant master of Radley College in 1879–1880. He qualified for admission as a solicitor and in 1893 he joined the staff of The Times, became Assistant Editor of Literature in 1897 and served as Editor of Literature in 1900–1901.^[2] He was assistant editor for The Times Literary Supplement from 1902 to 1923.^[3]

 

 

John Carter

Carter was born on 22 June 1748, the son of Benjamin Carter, a marble-carver established in Piccadilly in the West End of London. At an early age he was sent to a boarding-school at Battersea, and then to one in Kennington Lane. Leaving school aged about twelve, he went home to his father, making working drawings for the men. In about 1764, following his father's death, Carter was taken into the office of a Joseph Dixon, a surveyor and mason, with whom he remained for some years.

In 1774 he was employed to execute drawings of St. Paul's Churchyard for the Builders Magazine, edited by Francis Newbery, for which he was to continue to draw until 1786. Between 1775 and 1778 he published almost 30 designs for Gothic buildings in the magazine. He insisted that the Gothic was the correct style for ecclesiastical structures, Classical modes being only suitable for "mansions and other structures of ease and pleasure".

In 1780, on the recommendation of Michael Lort, Carter was employed by the Society of Antiquaries to do some drawing and etching. He was elected a fellow of the society in March 1795, and then worked as its draughtsman. In 1780 he had drawn for Richard Gough, later a patron, the west front of Croyland Abbey Church and other subjects, in Gough's Sepulchral Monuments and other works. From 1781 Carter also met other patrons and friends, among whom were John Soane, John Milner, Sir Henry Charles Englefield, William Bray, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, the Earl of Exeter, and Horace Walpole.^[1]

Publications

His first important published work was his Specimens of Ancient Sculpture and Painting, published in parts between 1780 and 1794. In his introduction to the Specimens Carter wrote that, "having explored at different times various parts of England for the purpose of taking sketches and drawing of the remains of ancient sculpture and painting, his aim is to perpetuate such as he has been so fortunate as to meet with by engraving them." While the Specimens was in progress, Carter also published Views of Ancient Buildings in England (drawn and engraved by himself) in six volumes (London, 1786–93). In 1785 he began another extensive work, The Ancient Architecture of England (1795–1814). John Summerson wrote that, in this work, "details of Gothic buildings are more sympathetically represented than in any previous books. The chronological arrangement of the architectural examples was an important feature and prepared the way for subsequent writers on the sequence of styles; referring to Gothic architecture as "Pointed architecture", he divided it into phases, such as "First Pointed" and "Second Pointed", classifications which remained in use well into the 19th century. A new and enlarged edition of the Ancient Buildings was published in 1845 (two parts, folio) by John Britton

Between 1795 and 1813 Carter was further engaged in preparing plans, elevations, sections, and specimens of the architecture of ecclesiastical buildings, which were published at intervals by the Society of Antiquaries^[1][7]

An important aspect of Carter's work was a series of more than 200 papers published in the Gentleman's Magazine between 1798 and his death in 1817 as "Pursuits of Architectural Innovation". These papers partly consist of a series of attacks on contemporaries engaged in the restoration of buildings and monuments.^[1] During this period – dominated by the Napoleonic wars – Carter appealed to the patriotism of his audience in his advocacy of the Gothic, by portraying the English Middle Ages, as a time of national glory and enlightened patronage, culminating in the reign of Edward III. The articles were signed simply "An Architect", but Carter's authorship could not be concealed.

Carter built little as an architect. A significant work however was Milner Hall, the Catholic chapel at Winchester, commissioned in 1791-2 by the priest John Milner following the Second Relief Act, which allowed the erection of Roman Catholic places of worship, on the condition that they were without steeples and bells. Entered through a Norman gateway salvaged from a demolished church, the chapel, stuccoed in imitation of stone, had details and furnishings imitated from various Perpendicular models.

Towards the autumn of 1816 his health began to decline. In the spring of the following year dropsy made its appearance, and he died in Upper Eaton Street, Pimlico, on 8 September 1817, aged 69. He was buried at Hampstead, an inscribed stone to his memory being placed on the south side of the church. His collection, including drawings and antiquities, was sold by auction at Sotheby's on 26 February 1818

John White

Jean-Baptiste David (called Jules David; 1808–1892) was a French painter and lithographer. His illustrations appeared in many books and magazines. He was particularly known for his illustrations of contemporary Parisian fashions.

Early Years

Jean-Baptiste David was born in 1808. He was a pupil of Pierre Duval Le Camus, who painted moralistic subjects. Duval was in turn a pupil of the famous painter Jacques-Louis David. Jean-Baptiste David began work in 1824, using his power of observation and facility of drawing to produce a variety of landscapes and interiors in Gothic style for publishers.^[1]

During the July Monarchy (1830–1848) David also published caricatures. He belonged to the mouvement party, and wanted to implement the ideals of liberty and the French republic. A caricature by David appeared in La Caricature of 31 May 1831. The king is depicted as an illusionist who uses the juste milieu and some poudre de non-intervention to make liberty and revolution vanish. David's lithographs often attacked political tyranny, and religious hypocrisy

David exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1834. He was working for the editor Jeannin in 1836 when he won a 2,000 franc prize from Delessert, president of the Savings Bank of Paris, for a work about the triumph of Virtue. His album Vice and Virtue illustrated in twelve lithographs a good or bad action in each stage of life.^[1] Six plates were dedicated to vice and six to virtue. The one series showed the criminals arrested, taken to prison and on the scaffold. The other series showed scenes of work, study and so on. The work was praised for the quality of the drawings but criticized for its tendentious moralization.

In 1839 the Histoire de France by Théodose Burette was published with 500 drawings by David, engraved by V. Chevin. L'Artiste announced the book, saying the illustrations would make the book "doubly popular". The next year L'Artiste gave a six-page review of the book, with reproductions of twelve of the illustrations, saying it was one of the most remarkable publications to have appeared for a long time.

Six plates published by Jeannin in 1844 titled “The Middle Ages, Customs and Costumes”, depicted nobles absorbed in religion and beggars living on charity. David's compositions were lively and often humorous. They were published until around 1855 in the Musée de l'amateur, the Revue des peintres and L'Artiste. His best known works are the series of The Wandering Jew and The Mysteries of Paris, and the illustrations of Morality in Action and the History of Napoleon. He also made lithographs for many romance titles.

Fashion Illustrations

Achille Devéria introduced David to the Journal des demoiselles and the Journal des jeunes personnes, for which he produced lithographs from 1839 to 1842. David's albums were often published as a supplement to women's magazines. He drew all the plates for the Le Moniteur de la Mode for fifty years. About 2,600 of David's fashion plates were first published in the Moniteur de la Mode, and then republished in other magazines in France, Germany, Britain, Spain and America. He was a pioneer in introducing contemporary backgrounds in his plates.

In 1860 Samuel Orchart Beeton, husband of Mrs Beeton and publisher of the Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine, began to include hand-colored fashion plates by David. These let his readers see the latest styles and colours from Paris, the world fashion centre at the time. Beeton included paper patterns, which let owners of the newly introduced domestic sewing machines make their own dresses.

Jean-Baptiste David died in 1892. In 1987 his sketchbooks were shown in an exhibition called Fashion drawings of Jules David (1808–1892) and his time at the Salon du Vieux-Colombier, town hall of the sixth arrondissement, Paris. During his long career, the fashionable figure was transformed. The delicate Dresden figurine of 1870, dressed in a modest, elaborate and very feminine style, was displaced by the "seven foot beauty with the ten inch waist" of 1893. The modern woman of 1893 was much more self-confident and her dress much more revealing and sophisticated than would have been suitable twenty years earlier

 

Silvester Diggles (1817-1880)

Silvester Diggles, naturalist, artist and musician, was born on 24 January 1817, the eldest son of Edward Holt Diggles, ironmonger of Liverpool, England, and his wife Elizabeth, née Silvester.

 

In May 1839 he married Eliza, daughter of John Bradley, tutor of Liverpool; they had two daughters and a son. With them he arrived at Sydney in November 1853. After an exploratory visit to Brisbane in November-December 1854, he settled there permanently with his wife and family in January 1855. He taught drawing and music and also practised as a tuner and repairer of musical instruments.

 

His wife died in August 1857 and on 26 January 1858 he married Albina, daughter of John and Sarah Birkett of Barnby in the Willows, Nottinghamshire; they had two sons.

 

Genial, friendly and an enthusiastic supporter of community activities, Diggles became a well-known and beloved citizen. He was a founder of the Brisbane Choral Society in 1859 and the Brisbane Philharmonic Society in 1861 and accompanist at church services and concerts. When the musicians of the city gave him a grand benefit concert in 1877, he was termed 'the father of music in Brisbane'. Sincerely religious, he had joined the New Jerusalem Church in 1846 and acted as its leader in Brisbane for some years; he also was a Mason.

Reference: 

Diggles helped to found the colony's first scientific institution, the Queensland Philosophical Society, on 1 March 1859 and published several papers in its Transactions. He acted for many years as honorary curator of the Philosophical Society’s small museum, established in the old windmill observatory on Wickham Terrace in 1862. This collection was gradually transferred to the Queensland Museum in 1871-74. His special interests were ornithology and entomology, through which he had a wide circle of friends and correspondents.

 

His outstanding publication was The Ornithology of Australia of which twenty-one parts were issued in 1865-70. Each part contains six lithographed hand-coloured plates, imperial quarto size, each accompanied by a page of descriptive text. When bound, this formed a large volume of 126 plates and 126 text pages, but it covered only about one third of the known Australian birds as he lacked the funds to complete the publication.

 

In 1877 his remaining plates and text were reissued under a new title, Companion to Gould’s Handbook. Between 1863 and 1875, Diggles, unassisted, made 325 detailed watercolour paintings depicting about 600 Australian land birds, as the preliminary artwork for his plates. These watercolours, now bound in four folio volumes, are held in the Mitchell Library, Sydney. They formed part of the Library’s foundation collection bequeathed by David Scott Mitchell.

 

Diggles's major contribution to the knowledge of Australian fauna, however, was through the extensive collections of insects, particularly butterflies, moths and beetles, which he sent to overseas entomologists for description. In 1875 his health began to fail, due partly to worry over the Ornithology. He died at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane, on 21 March 1880, survived by two daughters of his first marriage and two sons of the second.

 

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788)

was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste.

His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Georges Cuvier. Buffon published thirty-six quarto volumes of his Histoire Naturelle during his lifetime; with additional volumes based on his notes and further research being published in the two decades following his death.^[1]

Ernst Mayr wrote that "Truly, Buffon was the father of all thought in natural history in the second half of the 18th century".^[2]

Buffon held the position of intendant (director) at the Jardin du Roi, now called the Jardin des Plantes.

Georges Louis Leclerc (later Comte de Buffon) was born at Montbard, in the Province of Burgundy to Benjamin Francois Leclerc, a minor local official in charge of the salt tax and Anne-Christine Marlin also from a family of civil servants. Georges was named after his mother's uncle (his godfather) Georges Blaisot, the tax-farmer of the Duke of Savoy for all of Sicily. In 1714 Blaisot died childless, leaving a considerable fortune to his seven-year-old godson. Benjamin Leclerc then purchased an estate containing the nearby village of Buffon and moved the family to Dijon acquiring various offices there as well as a seat in the Dijon Parlement.

Georges attended the Jesuit College of Godrans in Dijon from the age of ten onwards. From 1723–1726 he then studied law in Dijon, the prerequisite for continuing the family tradition in civil service. In 1728 Georges left Dijon to study mathematics and medicine at the University of Angers in France. At Angers in 1730 he made the acquaintance of the young English Duke of Kingston, who was on his grand tour of Europe, and traveled with him on a large and expensive entourage for a year and a half through southern France and parts of Italy. Georges-Louis Leclerc had an elder brother, Pierre Daubenton (1703–1776), who wrote numerous articles for the Encyclopédie by Diderot

There are persistent but completely undocumented rumors from this period about duels, abductions and secret trips to England. In 1732 after the death of his mother and before the impending remarriage of his father, Georges left Kingston and returned to Dijon to secure his inheritance. Having added 'de Buffon' to his name while traveling with the Duke, he repurchased the village of Buffon, which his father had meanwhile sold off. With a fortune of about 80 000 livres Buffon set himself up in Paris to pursue science, at first primarily mathematics and mechanics, and the increase of his fortune.

Career

In 1732 he moved to Paris, where he made the acquaintance of Voltaire and other intellectuals. He first made his mark in the field of mathematics and, in his Sur le jeu de franc-carreau, introduced differential and integral calculus into probability theory; the problem of Buffon's needle in probability theory is named after him. In 1734 he was admitted to the French Academy of Sciences. During this period he corresponded with the Swiss mathematician Gabriel Cramer.

His protector Maurepas had asked the Academy of Sciences to do research on wood for the construction of ships in 1733. Soon afterward, Buffon began a long-term study, performing some of the most comprehensive tests to date on the mechanical properties of wood. Included were a series of tests to compare the properties of small specimens with those of large members. After carefully testing more than a thousand small specimens without knots or other defects, Buffon concluded that it was not possible to extrapolate to the properties of full-size timbers, and he began a series of tests on full-size structural members.

In 1739 he was appointed head of the Parisian Jardin du Roi with the help of Maurepas; he held this position to the end of his life. Buffon was instrumental in transforming the Jardin du Roi into a major research centre and museum. He also enlarged it, arranging the purchase of adjoining plots of land and acquiring new botanical and zoological specimens from all over the world

Thanks to his talent as a writer, he was invited to join Paris's second great academy, the Académie française in 1753. In his Discours sur le style ("Discourse on Style"), pronounced before the Académie française, he said, "Writing well consists of thinking, feeling and expressing well, of clarity of mind, soul and taste ... The style is the man himself" ("Le style c'est l'homme même").^[3] Unfortunately for him, Buffon's reputation as a literary stylist also gave ammunition to his detractors: The mathematician Jean le Rond D'Alembert, for example, called him "the great phrase-monger".

In 1752 Buffon married Marie-Françoise de Saint-Belin-Malain, the daughter of an impoverished noble family from Burgundy, who was enrolled in the convent school run by his sister. Madame de Buffon's second child, a son born in 1764, survived childhood; she herself died in 1769. When in 1772 Buffon became seriously ill and the promise that his son (then only 8) should succeed him as director of the Jardin became clearly impracticable and was withdrawn, the King raised Buffon's estates in Burgundy to the status of a county – and thus Buffon (and his son) became a Count. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1782.^[4] Buffon died in Paris in 1788.

He was buried in a chapel adjacent to the church of Sainte-Urse Montbard; during the French Revolution, his tomb was broken into and the lead that covered the coffin was ransacked to produce bullets. His heart was initially saved, as it was guarded by Suzanne Necker (wife of Jacques Necker), but was later lost. Today, only Buffon's cerebellum remains, as it is kept in the base of the statue by Pajou that Louis XVI had commissioned in his honor in 1776, located at the Museum of Natural History in Paris.

Publications

Buffon's Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière (1749–1788: in 36 volumes; an additional volume based on his notes appeared in 1789) was originally intended to cover all three "kingdoms" of nature but the Histoire naturelle ended up being limited to the animal and mineral kingdoms, and the animals covered were only the birds and quadrupeds. "Written in a brilliant style, this work was read ... by every educated person in Europe".^[2] Those who assisted him in the production of this great work included Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton, Philibert Guéneau de Montbeillard, and Gabriel-Léopold Bexon, along with numerous artists. Buffon's Histoire naturelle was translated into many different languages, making him one of the most widely read authors of the day, a rival to Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire.

In the opening volumes of the Histoire naturelle Buffon questioned the usefulness of mathematics, criticized Carl Linnaeus's taxonomical approach to natural history, outlined a history of the Earth with little relation to the Biblical account, and proposed a theory of reproduction that ran counter to the prevailing theory of pre-existence. The early volumes were condemned by the Faculty of Theology at the Sorbonne. Buffon published a retraction, but he continued publishing the offending volumes without any change.

In the course of his examination of the animal world, Buffon noted that despite similar environments, different regions have distinct plants and animals, a concept later known as Buffon's Law. This is considered to be the first principle of biogeography. He made the suggestion that species may have both "improved" and "degenerated" after dispersing from a center of creation. In volume 14 he argued that all the world's quadrupeds had developed from an original set of just thirty-eight quadrupeds.^[6] On this basis, he is sometimes considered a "transformist" and a precursor of Darwin. He also asserted that climate change may have facilitated the worldwide spread of species from their centers of origin. Still, interpreting his ideas on the subject is not simple, for he returned to topics many times in the course of his work

Buffon considered the similarities between humans and apes, but ultimately rejected the possibility of a common descent. He debated with James Burnett, Lord Monboddo on the relationship of the primates to man, Monboddo insisting, against Buffon, on a close relationship.

At one point, Buffon propounded a theory that nature in the New World was inferior to that of Eurasia. He argued that the Americas were lacking in large and powerful creatures, and that even the people were less virile than their European counterparts. He ascribed this inferiority to the marsh odors and dense forests of the American continent. These remarks so incensed Thomas Jefferson that he dispatched twenty soldiers to the New Hampshire woods to find a bull moose for Buffon as proof of the "stature and majesty of American quadrupeds".^[8] Buffon later admitted his error.

In Les époques de la nature (1778) Buffon discussed the origins of the solar system, speculating that the planets had been created by a comet's collision with the sun.^[9] He also suggested that the earth originated much earlier than 4004 BC, the date determined by Archbishop James Ussher. Basing his figures on the cooling rate of iron tested at his Laboratory the Petit Fontenet at Montbard, he calculated that the age of the earth was 75,000 years. Once again, his ideas were condemned by the Sorbonne, and once again he issued a retraction to avoid further problems.^[10]

Racial studies

Buffon and Johann Blumenbach were believers in monogenism, the concept that all races have a single origin. They also believed in the "Degeneration theory" of racial origins. They both said that Adam and Eve were Caucasian and that other races came about by degeneration from environmental factors, such as the sun and poor diet. They believed that the degeneration could be reversed if proper environmental control was taken, and that all contemporary forms of man could revert to the original Caucasian race.

Buffon and Blumenbach claimed that pigmentation arose because of the heat of the tropical sun. They suggested cold wind caused the tawny colour of the Eskimos. They thought the Chinese relatively fair-skinned compared to the other Asian stocks because they kept mostly in towns and were protected from environmental factors. Buffon said that food and the mode of living could make races degenerate and distinguish them from the original Caucasian race.^[11]

Believing in monogenism, Buffon thought that skin color could change in a single lifetime, depending on the conditions of climate and diet. Buffon was an advocate of the Asia hypothesis; in his Histoire Naturelle, he argued that humans' birthplace must be in a high temperate zone. As he believed good climate conditions would breed healthy humans, he hypothesized that the most logical place to look for the first humans' existence would be in Asia and around the Caspian Sea region.

 

Bernard-Germain-Étienne Delaville, Comte de Lacépède

26 December 1756 – 6 October 1825)

BGE Delaville, Comte de Lacepede was a French naturalist and an active freemason. He is known for his contribution to the Comte de Buffon's great work, the Histoire Naturelle.

Lacépède was born at Agen in Guienne. His education was carefully conducted by his father, and the early perusal of Buffon's Natural History (Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière) awakened his interest in that branch of study, which absorbed his chief attention. His leisure he devoted to music, in which, besides becoming a good performer on the piano and organ, he acquired considerable mastery of composition, two of his operas (which were never published) meeting with the high approval of Gluck; in 1781–1785 he also brought out in two volumes his Poétique de la musique.

Meantime he wrote two treatises, Essai sur l'électricité (1781) and Physique générale et particulière (1782–1784), which gained him the friendship of Buffon, who in 1785 appointed him subdemonstrator in the Jardin du Roi, and proposed that he continue Buffon's Histoire naturelle. This continuation was published under the titles Histoire naturelle des quadrupèdes ovipares et des serpents. Tome premier (1788) and Histoire naturelle des serpents. Tome second (1789).

After the French Revolution Lacépède became a member of the Legislative Assembly, but during the Reign of Terror he left Paris, his life having become endangered by his disapproval of the massacres. When the Jardin du Roi was reorganised as the Jardin des Plantes and as the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in 1793, Lacépède was appointed to the chair allocated to the study of reptiles and fishes.

In 1798, he published the first volume of Histoire naturelle des poissons, the fifth volume appearing in 1803, and in 1804 appeared his Histoire des cétacées. From this period until his death the part he took in politics prevented him making any further contribution of importance to science.

In 1799, he became a senator, in 1801 president of the senate (a role he also fulfilled in 1807–08 and 1811–13), in 1803 grand chancellor of the Legion of Honor, in 1804 minister of state, and at the Bourbon Restoration in 1819 he was created a peer of France.

He died at Épinay-sur-Seine. During the latter part of his life he wrote Histoire générale physique et civile de l'Europe, published posthumously in 18 volumes, 1826.^[1]

He was elected perpetual secretary of the French Academy of Sciences at the Institute of France in 1796, a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1806 and a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1812.^{[citation needed]}

Lacépède was initiated into freemasonry at 22 years old at Les Neuf Sœurs lodge in Paris, by Jérôme Lalande the worshipfull master himself, who wanted a naturalist for his prestigious lodge. In 1785, Lacépède created his own lodge : "Les Frères Initiés". After the Revolution, he helped Cambacérès to rebuild a French freemasonry submitted to the Emperor, and joined "Saint-Napoléon" lodge where General Kellermann was worshipfull master. He finished his masonic life as dignitary of the Suprême Conseil de France.

Evolution

Lacépède was an early evolutionary thinker. He argued for the transmutation of species. He believed that species change over time and may go extinct from geological cataclysms or become "metamorphosed" into new species.^[5] In his book Histoire naturelle des poissons, he wrote:

"The species can undergo such a large number of modifications in its forms and qualities, that without losing its vital capacity, it may be, by its latest conformation and properties, farther removed from its original state than from a different species: it is in that case metamorphosed into a new species."^[6]