Recherches sur un graveur de l'Encyclopédie: Defehrt

Abstract

Madeleine Pinault-Sørensen and Bent Sørensen : Defehrt, an Engraver for the Encyclopédie. Defehrt, who was employed by the "Libraires associés" as an engraver for the Encyclopédie plates, remains obscure despite the importance of contribution to the work, and we know neither his first name nor his place and date of birth. His engravings are those of a moderately talented artist, but one whose themes vary according to his commissions; he executed historical portaits, copies of classical statutes or paintings of famous artists like Boucher. He also worked on the engravings for La Fontaine's Fables, Buffon's Histoire naturelle and Buchoz's Traité historique des plantes qui croissent en Lorraine. He made 378 plates for volumes I-V of the Encyclopédie , but ended his collaboration with the sixth volume after disagreements with Daubenton and Diderot. He left for Denmark in order to engrave the new maps of the country drawn up by the Danish Royal Society, and he also engraved several plates for Carsten Niebuhr's Travels in Arabia. He died in 1774, probably in Denmark.