Portrait of Pierre Louis Maupertuis
Date
1741
Sitter
Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698 - 1759, French) , Mathematician
Creator
Jean Daullé (1703 - 1763, French) , Engraver
After
Robert Tournières (1667 - 1752, French) , Painter
Object type
Image reference
Material
Technique
Subject
Content object
Description
Full-length portrait of Pierre Louis Maupertuis in fur clothes from his 1736 expedition to Lapland, where he measured a length of the arc of the meridian. He is shown pointing with his left hand and with his right pressing on to top of a globe, making it oblate. Maupertuis is presented in a stone archway with a view of a mountainous landscape behind, showing pine trees and huts giving off plumes of smoke. An inscription from Voltaire is seen below, alongside an illustration of a reindeer pulling a sledge.
Inscribed: ‘Ce Globe mal connu, qu'il à su mesurer, / Devient un monument où sa gloire se fonde; / Son sort est de fixer la figure du monde, / De lui plaire, et de l'éclairer./ Par M de Voltaire’. Inscribed below: ‘Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis.’ ‘Peint par R. Tourniere’ ‘Gravé par J.Daullé. 1741.’
Pierre Louis Moreau Maupertuis de (1698-1759), French mathematician and philosopher, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1728.
Inscribed: ‘Ce Globe mal connu, qu'il à su mesurer, / Devient un monument où sa gloire se fonde; / Son sort est de fixer la figure du monde, / De lui plaire, et de l'éclairer./ Par M de Voltaire’. Inscribed below: ‘Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis.’ ‘Peint par R. Tourniere’ ‘Gravé par J.Daullé. 1741.’
Pierre Louis Moreau Maupertuis de (1698-1759), French mathematician and philosopher, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1728.