Counterfeit bodies: Sébastien Leclerc, anatomy, and the art of copying at the Paris Academy of Sciences

Abstract

Sébastien Leclerc’s engraving “L’Académie des sciences et des beaux-arts” of 1698 depicted an ideal academy that joined science and art in a single set of endeavors. Art historian Maxime Préaud argued that the engraving constituted Leclerc’s “testament” toward the end of his career, summarizing his work as an artist and his ambitions as a natural philosopher. This article closely examines this “testament” in the context of the intertwining roles of artists and men of science at the pre-1699 Paris Academy of Sciences. Leclerc’s engraving, and the changes it underwent in its eight different versions, reveals both his frustration with the Academy and his achievements within its constraints of originality, imagination, and patronage. Looking particularly at Leclerc’s illustrations for the Academy’s Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire naturelle des animaux (1671–76), it is argued that the Academy’s notion of illustration as an exact copy of a singular animal clashed with Leclerc’s desire to demonstrate the central role of images in creating knowledge and not simply representing it. Leclerc’s “L’Académie des sciences et des beaux-arts” takes on new significance as a regretful look at what might have been, as well as a sly commentary on what had come to be.