Rebecca Ford
62
of the best articles on those subjects and Metallurgy in the Encyclopédie are his”,
6 although Horace Walpole, aware of the potential
philosophical implications of the study of the Earth’s history, was less
favourably impressed:
I sometimes go to Baron d’Olbach’s, but I have left off his dinners, as there was
no bearing the authors, and philosophers, and savants, of which he has a pigeonhouse full. They soon turned my head with a new system of antediluvian deluges,
which they have invented to prove the eternity of matter. The Baron is persuaded
that Pall Mall is paved with lava or deluge stones.
7
D’Holbach was thus the ideal candidate for overseeing the
Encyclopédie plates on mineralogy after Diderot’s dispute with Daubenton le jeune, combining as he did expertise in mineralogy with a
keen involvement in the Encyclopédie project as a whole (as may be
seen from his contribution of more radical anti-religious articles as
well as from his longstanding friendship and continual support of
Diderot throughout the years of the Encyclopédie’s publication). His
well-regarded art collection, moreover, although it may well have
been just one more element in the lifestyle of a wealthy philosophe,
also suggests an aesthetic interest in the mineralogical plates above
and beyond their scientific context.
8
The section of plates on mineralogy contains plates showing
individual mineral and fossil samples and numerous depictions of
mining and metallurgy that conform to the presentation of the arts, as
well as plates showing large-scale natural phenomena such as volcanoes, glaciers, and rock formations; plates which initially seem in
___________________________
6 Quoted in R. A. Leigh, “Les Amitiés françaises du Dr. Burney”, Revue de littérature
comparée, 25 (1951), 161-94 (p. 170).
7 The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, ed. by W. S. Lewis, Robert
A. Smith, and Charles H. Bennett, 48 vols (New Haven: Yale University Press, 193783), XXX, Horace Walpole’s Correspondence with George Selwyn, Lord Lincoln, Sir
Charles Hanbury Williams, Henry Fox, Richard Edgcumbe, ed. by W. S. Lewis and
Robert A. Smith (1961), p. 208 (to George Selwyn, Monday 2 December 1765).
8 For details of d’Holbach’s art collection, see Catalogue de tableaux des trois écoles,
Estampes en Volumes & en Feuilles, Figures de bronze, Vases de marbre,
Porcelaines, Bronzes dorés, Histoire naturelle & autres objets; Formant le Cabinet
de M. le Baron d’Holback ; des Académies de Pétersbourg, de Manheim & de Berlin
(Paris: Le Brun, 1789) (date of sale: 16 March 1789). A facsimile reprint of
d’Holbach’s art catalogue is published in Catalogue de tableaux des trois écoles;
Eléments de la morale universelle; ou, Catéchisme de la nature, ed. by Jeroom
Vercruysse (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1979).
62
of the best articles on those subjects and Metallurgy in the Encyclopédie are his”,
6 although Horace Walpole, aware of the potential
philosophical implications of the study of the Earth’s history, was less
favourably impressed:
I sometimes go to Baron d’Olbach’s, but I have left off his dinners, as there was
no bearing the authors, and philosophers, and savants, of which he has a pigeonhouse full. They soon turned my head with a new system of antediluvian deluges,
which they have invented to prove the eternity of matter. The Baron is persuaded
that Pall Mall is paved with lava or deluge stones.
7
D’Holbach was thus the ideal candidate for overseeing the
Encyclopédie plates on mineralogy after Diderot’s dispute with Daubenton le jeune, combining as he did expertise in mineralogy with a
keen involvement in the Encyclopédie project as a whole (as may be
seen from his contribution of more radical anti-religious articles as
well as from his longstanding friendship and continual support of
Diderot throughout the years of the Encyclopédie’s publication). His
well-regarded art collection, moreover, although it may well have
been just one more element in the lifestyle of a wealthy philosophe,
also suggests an aesthetic interest in the mineralogical plates above
and beyond their scientific context.
8
The section of plates on mineralogy contains plates showing
individual mineral and fossil samples and numerous depictions of
mining and metallurgy that conform to the presentation of the arts, as
well as plates showing large-scale natural phenomena such as volcanoes, glaciers, and rock formations; plates which initially seem in
___________________________
6 Quoted in R. A. Leigh, “Les Amitiés françaises du Dr. Burney”, Revue de littérature
comparée, 25 (1951), 161-94 (p. 170).
7 The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, ed. by W. S. Lewis, Robert
A. Smith, and Charles H. Bennett, 48 vols (New Haven: Yale University Press, 193783), XXX, Horace Walpole’s Correspondence with George Selwyn, Lord Lincoln, Sir
Charles Hanbury Williams, Henry Fox, Richard Edgcumbe, ed. by W. S. Lewis and
Robert A. Smith (1961), p. 208 (to George Selwyn, Monday 2 December 1765).
8 For details of d’Holbach’s art collection, see Catalogue de tableaux des trois écoles,
Estampes en Volumes & en Feuilles, Figures de bronze, Vases de marbre,
Porcelaines, Bronzes dorés, Histoire naturelle & autres objets; Formant le Cabinet
de M. le Baron d’Holback ; des Académies de Pétersbourg, de Manheim & de Berlin
(Paris: Le Brun, 1789) (date of sale: 16 March 1789). A facsimile reprint of
d’Holbach’s art catalogue is published in Catalogue de tableaux des trois écoles;
Eléments de la morale universelle; ou, Catéchisme de la nature, ed. by Jeroom
Vercruysse (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1979).