1713 Journal Literaire engraved frontspiece by Picart

Enlightenment French literary journal printed in The Hague Netherlands.

Old pen signature and date on back ‘ ____ 10 avril 176_’.

Drawn by Bernard Picart.

Goddess Athena surrounded by putti and books, in a library.

1713 was the first year this Journal appeared. It lasted until 1737.

Nice little engraving in fine condition. Mounted to a thick cardboard mat for framing (see photos). Ink on back has bled a little unto front. Four small piece glues to print, then used to affix tape to hold on to mat, only top two taped.

8.5 X 14 cm print

22 X 22.25 cm mat

Bernard Picart (1673 – 1733), was a French engraver, son of Etienne Picart, also an engraver. He was born in Paris and died in Amsterdam. He moved to Antwerp in 1696, and then spent a year in Amsterdam before returning to France at the end of 1698. After his wife died in 1708, he moved to Amsterdam in 1711 (later being joined by his father), where he became a Protestant convert and married again. Most of his work was book-illustrations, including the Bible and Ovid.

WIKIPEDIA

The late 17th and early 18th centuries in Europe saw the creation of many scholarly journals. Their functions were mainly to review scholarly works and to publish items that were of interest to intellectual life and debate. The journals as a whole took an intellectually open editorial position and would not promote nor denigrate a particular religion, philosophy or science based on religious dogma. The journals were a force in the Enlightenment, but all of Europe was not equally part of the movement. For reasons of censorship, difficulty of access to foreign scholarship and unreliable distribution of its journal output, France was under-represented in 17th and 18th century journal production, although the French language was, alongside Latin, the international language of scholarly publishing. Therefore, although many of the journals were published in the Netherlands, they appeared in French. Here is a partial list of journals that were published in the early Enlightenment.

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