Allegory of Economy, Silence, Divinity, Eternity, Pl. 86 — Nouvelle Iconologie Historique

Four miniature allegories — Economy, Silence, Divinity, Eternity — arranged on a single sheet as Enlightenment-era moral shorthand.

Plate 86. Designed by Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune; engraved by Robert Bénard. From Encyclopédie Méthodique. Published in Paris by Panckoucke, c. 1782–1790.

Charles-Joseph Panckoucke's Encyclopédie Méthodique succeeded Diderot's original by reorganising knowledge into thematic dictionaries. Moreau le Jeune, a leading book-illustrator of the late ancien régime, supplied the elegant figural plates, while Bénard — also of the original Encyclopédie — engraved many of them in the same exacting linear idiom.

Hand-coloured copperplate engraving. Sheet approximately 46.7 × 33.9 cm. Excellent.