Pouch Belt and Mouth Bit, Diderot Chirurgie Plate XXXVI, circa 1772

An original antique copper engraving, uncolored, with four numbered figures of surgical appliances. Fig. 1 is a deep, rounded pouch whose rim is held on two wire rods, looped at the top and running down either side. Fig. 2 shows a long flat belt, lettered b, with a smaller oval pouch held in a frame of two wire rods, a, that pass through the belt and bend into loops below it. Fig. 3 is the head of a young person with a band tied around the hair and a small metal frame fitted over the lower lip and teeth, held by a strap running along the jaw toward the ear. Fig. 4 is a hand instrument with a dark tapered handle, C and D, a long curved hollow tipped shaft, B, and a second blade, A, pivoted on a small roller and worked by a lever, F; dotted arcs numbered 5 to 15 mark its successive openings.

The plate number "Pl. XXXVI." is lettered at the top right, the section "Chirurgie." below the border, and the page number "99." at the lower left. It is signed at the lower right with the conjoined AB monogram followed by "s.", the mark the Venetian engraver Antonio Baratti used on the Livorno plates; his full signature, "Antonio Baratti s.", is lettered on Pl. XII of this section.

The Encyclopédie edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert was accompanied by volumes of engraved plates, the Recueil de planches. This plate belongs to the Chirurgie section of the Livorno edition published by Giuseppe Aubert, whose plate volumes appeared between 1771 and 1778. The Chirurgie plates set out surgical instruments, bandages and apparatus and show operations, with the figures numbered and keyed to an explanation printed in the text volume.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.