Huard, Georges. “Les planches de
l’Encyclopédie et celles de la Description des Arts et Métiers de l’Académie des Sciences.” Revue d’histoire des sciences et de leurs applications, vol. 4, no. 3/4, Armand Colin, 1951, pp. 238–49. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23905023.
Georges Huard, using for a base the Bibliothèque nationale de France’s bicentennial collection on the Encyclopédie (which exposed a series of previously unknown documents), is the first scholar to discuss the alleged plagiarism in the Encyclopédie’s plates since Élie Fréron published letters of accusation in l’Année littéraire in 1759 and 1760. Huard introduces these letters, written by architect and artist Pierre Patte, and discusses the accusations made therein; that is, that the Encyclopédie, in both their written articles for the first seven volumes and in their to-be-published plate volumes, were taking advantage of plates designed for the Academy of Sciences’ work, the Descriptions des arts et métiers, headed by René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur. Huard also quotes a letter written by Réaumur in which he critiques the indecent engravers who were willing to sell away his plates to the Encyclopédie. Through an investigation of the letters mentioned above as well as documentation from the Academy of Sciences and direct comparisons between the Encyclopédie and the Descriptions, Huard attempts to determine if the accusations as made by Patte and Fréron are legitimate and why the Academy took very little action regarding the matter.
Basic Information
Country of Publication: France
Language: French
Decade: 1950s
Main Classification: Plates, Plagiarism
Related Sources
*In Progress*
Notes
1. No images of comparision between the two works are provided.
Updates
5/24/2021: Created page.