Portrait print of Jean Le Rond d'Alembert

Half-length portrait print of the French mathematician and philosopher Jean Le Rond d’Alembert. Etching and engraving on paper by Benoît-Louis Henriquez after a drawing by Nicolas René Jollain, Paris, 1777. The print shows d’Alembert seated at a desk looking off to one side, raising a quill pen in one hand and holding a pair of dividers in the other. On the table in front of him are some books and loose papers, another quill pen, and mathematical drawing instruments, while on top of a cabinet behind him are a globe, some large, rolled papers, and more books. The portrait is presented in a trompe l'oeil frame with an ornate plaque underneath inscribed ‘J. D’ALEMBERT.’ Details of the artists are printed below, in French.

Shown surrounded by books, papers, and mathematical instruments, this portrait appropriately presents Jean Le Rond d’Alembert as a mathematician and intellectual. Together with Denis Diderot, d’Alembert is perhaps best remembered as one of the editors of the ‘Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers’ (‘The Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts’).

The Encyclopédie was one of the most ambitious publications of the 18th century. Some 160 authors from different classes of society contributed more than 70,000 articles to 17 volumes of text, with a further 11 volumes of engraved images also published. Promoting current ideas spanning the sciences, arts, crafts, and technologies, the Encyclopédie aimed to assemble all human knowledge for the benefit of society. But it also sparked controversy and was subject to bans because it argued that knowledge should be founded on reason rather than religious dogma.

It took about twenty years to publish the Encyclopédie in its entirety between 1751 and 1772, but d’Alembert withdrew from his editorial role in 1759. He nevertheless authored many of its mathematical and scientific articles, as well as the Preliminary Discourse at the beginning of volume 1.

This print is one of four by Benoît-Louis Henriquez depicting figures who contributed to the Encyclopédie, the others representing Diderot, Voltaire, and Montesquieu. They were advertised for sale in Paris at 3 livres each in the ‘Mercure de France’ in February 1777, which described them as very good likenesses and well engraved (‘très-ressemblans & bien gravés’). The Mercure also recommended that collectors insert the portraits within specific volumes of the Encyclopédie, with that of d’Alembert recommended for volume 3. A complete set of the Encyclopédie is held in the Science Museum Group’s Rare Books collection.