Card-Maker, from Encyclopédie
1762/77
Medium
Engraving on cream laid paper
Dimensions
40 × 26 cm (15 3/4 × 10 1/4 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
148225
Art Historical Context
Step into the bustling workshops of 18th-century France with *Card-Maker, from Encyclopédie*, an etching by A. J. Defehrt created between 1762 and1777. This print is one of thousands of illustrations from Denis Diderot's groundbreaking *Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers*—the Enlightenment's ambitious compendium of human knowledge. Published in Paris amid intellectual fervor, it sought to document every trade and technique, making specialized skills accessible to all and challenging the secrecy of guilds. Defehrt's precise engraving on cream laid pape...
About the Artist
A. J. Defehrt · 1708–1779
A. J. Defehrt (1723–1779) was a French draftsman, painter, and engraver whose career is best defined by his substantial contributions to one of the most ambitious publishing projects of the European Enlightenment: the illustrated plates of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert's Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. This monumental project, which aimed t...