Object Literature
Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux was the most comprehensive and noted ornithological work of the 1700s. It included a broad variety of birds native to Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
Martinet was one of the greatest birds artists of the 18th century. He worked for the French court as an engraver and artist. Martinet’s illustrations are accurate and beautifully artistic.
Comte de Buffon was a respected naturalist and scientist. Buffon dared to challenge religious thought decades before Darwin. He suggested the Earth was older than 6,000 years and the common ancestry of apes and humans.
He directed the Jardin des Plantes botanical garden in Paris, which still exists today. His most outstanding achievement came in the field of natural history with the publication of the monumental Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière (1749–1788) in 36 volumes, for which Martinet created all the bird illustrations which were also published separately in Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux.