Truss Springs and Bladder Syringe, Diderot Chirurgie Plate VII, circa 1772

An original antique copper engraving, uncolored, presenting appliances in twelve numbered figures. Across the top are four truss springs, flat bands bent round and ending in pierced pads (Figs. 1 to 4), one with a buckle (Fig. 3). At the right is a plain open ring with a small screw clamp (Fig. 5). In the middle are four thick padded rings of round, square, oval and triangular outline (Figs. 6 to 9), one with a long tape. Below them are a hollow cone ribbed in close rings, open at its wide end, with a long flat tape attached (Fig. 10), a large bladder tied onto a turned pipe, its ends marked with the small letters a and b (Fig. 11), and a curved horn tube with a flared mouth and a row of small holes near its narrow end (Fig. 12).

The plate number "Pl. VII." is lettered at the top right outside the border, the section title "Chirurgie." is centered below the border, and the page number "68", without a stop, is at the lower left. It is signed at the lower right, just below the border, 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 plate belongs to the Chirurgie section of the Recueil de planches, the volumes of engraved plates that accompanied the Encyclopédie edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert. It comes from 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.