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Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

La Vérité recherchée par les philosophes [print] / B. Picart invenit et sculpsit.

Accession number
PML 140007, no. 158
Creator
Picart, Bernard, 1673-1733, printmaker.
Published
Paris : Chez B. Picart rue St Iacques au buste de Monseigneur, 1707
Credit line
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
Notes
Caption directly below image: In multitudine separavit eos, et immutavit vias eorum. Eclesiasti. c. 33. v. 11.
Thesis engraving for Albin Brillon de Joüy's doctoral thesis "Conclusiones philosophicae" (Paris : Ex typographiâ Jacobi Quillau, 1707), printed as a headpiece illustration for a page of engraved text providing a description of the scene, and announcing the date of the thesis: Gravée pour une thèse de Philosophie soutenue par Monsieur Brillon de Joüy le 25 juillet 1707.
Description
1 print : etching and engraving ; image: 94 x 154 mm; plate mark: 104 x 154 mm; sheet: 277 x 205 mm
Summary
The philosophers seeking Truth, thesis engraving: Philosophy, personified by woman crowned with stars and holding sceptre and Ouroboros, shows Truth to a group of philosophers led by Descartes; Truth, personified by a naked woman holding a book, a palm leaf and the sun, is surrounded by Time and by Minerva, who is vanquishing Ignorance; several scientific instruments lie on the ground; the allegorical scene surmounts an engraved text; both are surrounded by an ornate border; the scene and the text/border are printed from two separate plates on a single sheet. Cf. British Museum online catalog.
Classification
Department