Soierie: Encyclopedie, Ou Dictionnaire Raisonee des Sciences, Des Arts et Des Metiers

This VERY RARE 191pp book presents a remarkably detailed description of the processes, technologies and machinery used in the Lyon silk weaving industry in the 1750s. Its contents were produced by Roland de Platiere as one of the stand-alone chapters in Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert's: "Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and Crafts", which focused on the mechanical arts. Planned and edited by Diderot and d'Alembert, the first version of this had separate chapters on 17 industry sectors, including this one on silk, written by different authors, known as the Encyclopedistes. It was aimed at secularising the thoughts and achievements of the Enlightenment, then controlled in France by the Jesuits, to inform the public and future generations. The Encyclopedia eventually comprised 28 volumes containing 78,118 articles and 3,129 illustrations. It has been described as the industrial Wikipedia of its day with new articles being submitted in response to previous ones. This contents of this book were extracted from an original copy of the Encyclopedia. The book is rare in that it contains both de Platiere's narrative and the complete set of Plates; other offerings for sale are for Plates only, usually in incomplete sets. De Platiere was an industrial economist and an Inspector of Manufactures. He reviewed the Lyon silk industry and instructed Louis-Jacques Goussier to make 135 detailed drawings of the key processes and machinery. From these, Robert Benard then made 135 copper-engraved Plates, 23 of which are spread over two pages in the book, giving 158 pp in total. Each Plate is marked "Goussier Des(sine) and Benard Fecit. Goussier and Benard were acknowledged masters of their arts at the time. Goussier did the drawings for the whole of Diderot's Encyclopedia, to which Benard supplied at least 1,800 Plates. De Platiere was appointed Minister of the Interior under Louis XVI in 1792 but resigned when the King was executed in 1793. Inspired by his politically active wife he became a leader of the Girondist faction in the Revolution but fled Paris when the Jacobins triumphed. He committed suicide on learning that his wife had been murdered in Paris during the Reign of Terror. Printed on heavy hand-made cream wove paper with the characteristic deckledpage edges. In pp 1-3 the Plates are given names and listed in five Sections: 1. Before fabric making; 2. Simple fabrics; 3. More complex fabrics; 4. Velours; 5. Finishing, polishing and calendering. In pp 4-38 De Platiere describes in more detail what each one of the Plates represents and its importance. This book originally contained all 135 of the Plates, each printed on one side of the page only, but at the end the pages containing numbers 130 to 135 can be seen to have been cut out. However, the seller has replaced these in loose-leaf form with original identical Plates from another, incomplete, set of the Plates which he owns. All of these are additions are printed on heavy cream wove hand-made paper with cropped edges; five are full-size and one is half-size. In the front endpapers there is an Ex Libris plate of (Professor) Thomas W Fox, and another recording that the book was gifted to the Textile Institute in 1918 by (his widow) Mrs Fox and Alderman William Frost J.P. Quarter leather binding, probably 19th century, with paper-covered boards; gold title (SOIERIE) on spine; slight wear on all corners and edges; slight staining on the top and bottom of the front cover; all pages very slightly and uniformly browned. Otherwise a Very Good copy for its age. A video of the book and its contents is available on request. This large book (10 inches x 15.75 inches) weighs 2kg (4.4lbs). Postage quotation on request Size: 10 x 15.75 Inches.…