Trepan Brace, Crowns and Bits, Diderot Chirurgie Plate XVI, circa 1772

An original antique copper engraving, uncolored, from the Chirurgie plates of the Encyclopédie, showing seventeen numbered figures. Fig. 1 is an instrument with a pear shaped handle and a hooked, double pointed head; figs. 2 and 3 are small hammer headed instruments on long handles. Figs. 4, 5, 6 and 8 are heads on turned shanks with square tangs: a plain cylindrical crown, a pointed pyramidal head, a large crown with spiral fluting and a toothed rim, and a crown opened to show the pin inside; fig. 7 is the small pointed pin with its screw thread. Figs. 9 and 10 have open heart shaped handles, fig. 10 carrying a spiral bit. Fig. 11 is the cranked brace and fig. 12 a separate square socket fitting with a small button. Figs. 13 to 17 are handled instruments: a notched blade with a button end, a double ended instrument with a cranked hook and a curved blade, a curved instrument with a roughened tip, a stout handle with a button, and a long slender rod curved at the ends.

The plate number is lettered "Tav. XVI." at the top right, the section "Chirurgie" is lettered below the border, and the page number "79." stands 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).

Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie was accompanied by volumes of engraved plates, the Recueil de planches. The Livorno edition was published by Giuseppe Aubert, with its plate volumes appearing between 1771 and 1778, and this plate comes from its Chirurgie section, its 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.