Unattributed. [Noah's Ark]

Unattributed. [Noah's Ark].  From a Supplement to the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert.

12 5/8 x 16 34.  Engraving supervised by Robert Benard, c. 1770.

This image is based on the Antiquités Judaïques (Antiquities of the Jews) by Flavius Josephus (37 - c. 100), a Jewish-Roman scholar who fought against the Romans in the First Jewish-Roman War, was captured, and became first a slave then a free Roman citizen. Two of his best known works were The Jewish War which described the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation (66 - 70) and Antiquities of the Jews, which gave a history of the world from a Jewish perspective and was intended for a Roman readership. These books provided valuable information about first century (C.E.) Judaism and the background of emerging Christianity.

The Encyclopédie, published in Paris between 1751 and 1772, was an example of the Enlightenment, intended to comprise all of the knowledge of the world. 

Born in 1734, Robert Benard engraved some 1800 plates for the Encyclopédie. This plate indicates it was "supervised" by Benard.