Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.19093

    Portrait of Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre

    Date
    1833
    Sitter
    Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre (1749 - 1822, French) , Astronomer
    Creator
    Benjamin Holl (1808 - 1884, British) , Printmaker
    After
    Louis Léopold Boilly (1761, French) , Painter
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 220mm
    width (print): 135mm
    Subject
    Description
    Head and shoulders portrait of Delambre, wearing a high collared coat, with waistcoat, shirt and stock. He wears the Légion d'honneur medal on his lapel.

    Plate from a grangerized copy of A history of the Royal Society, with memoirs of the Presidents…by Charles Richard Weld (London, John W. Parker, 1848). In this edition, the original two volumes were extended to eight volumes with the addition of extra-illustrations and documents, by Alexander Meyrick Broadley.

    The print appears at p.256 in volume 3 of the adapted set of Weld’s History. In referring to the history of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Weld quotes from Delambre’s Histoire de l’Astronomie.

    Inscription below: ‘Engraved by B. Holl. DELAMBRE. From the original by Boilly in the possession of Delambre’s Family at Amiens. Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.’ Slightly trimmed, lacking the printing attribution to Charles Knight at the lower edge.

    Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre (1749-1822) French mathematician and astronomer was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1791.

    Object history
    Print from Charles Richard Weld's 2 volume A history of the Royal Society... (London, John W. Parker, 1848) grangerized by the writer and collector Alexander Meyrick Broadley (1847–1916) into 8 volumes, adding illustrative material and manuscript items to Weld's text. The books were initially owned by Ludwig Mond FRS (1839–1909), and according to an inscription by his son Robert Ludwig Mond FRS (1867–1938) they were intended for presentation to the Society. This eventually happened in late 1959, the donor being the politician Harry Nathan (1889–1963), Lord Nathan of Churt.
    Related fellows
    Charles Richard Weld (1813 - 1869, British) , Author
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > France
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