Architectura Navalis Mercatoria (Vol. 1, 2 & 3); Art Militiare by Diderot

In three volumes. 338 folio copperplate engravings (planches) of which 74 are beautifully hand-colored. These include single, double, triple, and quadruples, the latter of which often extends to 36 inches and were printed on heavier handmade paper to avoid wear and tear. Fortunately, the decision of the original owner to bind these plates into three volumes has preserved them from being sold as individual plates. Each folio plate has retained Benard's name which along with the watermark is consistent with those Paris printing in the mid-1780s and issued in Panckoucke's massive extended version of Diderot as the Encyclopedie Methodique (1782-). What sets this remarkable collection apart is the near fine condition at every point. The first two volumes (Novalis Mercatoria) are devoted to a celebration of the French navy and shipbuilding (usually under the descriptor marine or ancres) and they are predominately detailed renderings of the structure as well as the mathematical charts of calculations. The tools listed in the construction of the ships as well as the trees selected for the masts, etc. are pictured here as well as the flags of the nations each of which are hand-colored (the US map shows only the 13 stars consistent with the period). It is also consistent with the watermark on plate 154 which is dated 1786. The plates represent documents of the life and spirit of the high degree of craftsmanship before the industrial revolution as it applied especially to the age of sail. Here there is a handsome treasury of graphic information not only about the engineering and mathematics of shipbuilding, forts, or anchors but it also depicts the daily life of workers and thus embodies the attitudes of the 18th Century. the plates are viewed as a primary source of early modern history and the enlightenment view of the arts. Schwab quotes John Morley: "The animation of these great folio plates is prodigious..to turn over volume after volume is like watching a spending panorama of life at the time." The summary collation of the plates is as follows: ART MILITAIRE, 59 plates of which there are 30 double plates and 21 hand-colored plates. These are in the exact order as the volume in the University of Chicago set shown in Hathitrust. ANCRES (in Marine volume II). 9 plates of which 4 are double plates and 3 hand-colored plates. These plates were considered essential for the naval volumes. All of the stages of this operation are depicted here with striking detail from the initial forging of the shaft of an anchor under a trip hammer, later ones of welding claws or arms through great heaths preparing items on their way to the shipyard. MARINE Volume I. 96 plates of which there are 27 double plates, 11 quad folding plates, 2 large folding plates, and 29 hand-colored plates. MARINE Volume II: Plates 97-156 [i.e. 158 since plates 116 and 158 were two different items though using the same number). There are 43 double folding plates, 1 quad plate, and 21 hand-colored plates. Volume 1 above is in the exact same order as the copies in the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, with the 158 plates plus the 16 plates noted below (Recueil de Planches, de l'encyclupeida, vol. V). Marine (part II within volume II): 16 plates of which 2 are double folding plates, there are no color plates in this small group which are numbered in roman numerals. Note: the Smithsonian has the 158 plates in a disbound volume donated by Merrit A. Edison, Jr. but not the Ancres with the 9 plates or the Marine Part II with the 16 plates. Of the plates we examined online in Hathitrust none had evidence of being hand-colored nor was the condition necessarily fine.