DU CHÂTELET, Émilie (Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet, 1706-1749) - photo 1

DU CHÂTELET, Émilie (Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet, 1706-1749)

Lot 52
13.07.2022 10:30UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 18 900
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 794420
Lot 52 | DU CHÂTELET, Émilie (Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet, 1706-1749)
Estimate value
£ 8 000 – 12 000
DU CHÂTELET, Émilie (Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet, 1706-1749)

Autograph manuscript notes on physics, philosophy and religion, n.p., n.d. [c.1730s-40s].

In French, with some quotations in Latin, Italian and English. Drafts, frequently cancelled, approx. 62 pages, various sizes, including one gathering of 18 leaves (of which 3 blanks), 203 x 142mm, the loose leaves including two playing cards with annotations on versos; and one leaf in another hand. Provenance: Émilie du Châtelet: ses travaux scientifiques et le château de Cirey, Christie's Paris, 29 October 2012, lot 11.



Autograph notes by one of the great scientific figures of the Enlightenment. Du Châtelet's notes give an impression of the remarkable range of her intellectual interests and reading, covering gravitation, kinetic energy, mechanics, the nature of matter, optics, number theory, biology as well as philosophy and theology; the authors she draws upon or refers to include Newton, Descartes, Galileo, 's Gravesande, Perrault, Malebranche, Alexander Pope (the Essay on Man), John Arbuthnot, her former tutor Maupertuis (including a referrence to a letter by him to Voltaire about gravitation) and the French Newtonian Joseph Privat de Molières. The style of her note-taking offers an insight into Du Châtelet's intellectual method: while a few leaves bear extended drafts (particularly on opposition between Newtonians and Cartesians), the majority are brief phrases or paragraphs which have been cancelled, presumably after copying. The gathering of 18 leaves opens with the title 'Loix du mouvement assés bien deduites a lacademie 1706', and continues with dated notes apparently from the reports of the Académie des sciences between 1669 and 1732; at the conclusion are a few pages of notes in inverse orientation, including a list of works to be consulted on movement and weight. The single leaves include two pages of algebraic formulas, and another with sketches of scientific apparatus; the latest dated source is a journal of April 1743; the two notes on the versos of playing cards (one of them reading 'Si la rondeur des vase[s] ne contribuent (sic) pas aux couleurs des liqueurs') provide an appealing connection with the quotidian side of the Du Châtelet - Voltaire household. One fragment includes two phrases quoted from (or perhaps drafted for?) Voltaire's 1737 article Conseils à un journaliste.



Émilie du Châtelet is best known for her translation and commentary on Newton's Principia (published posthumously in 1756), which played a major role in the spread of Newtonian physics on the Continent. Her name is indissociable from that of Voltaire, her lover and intellectual collaborator with whom she lived at the château de Cirey from 1734 onwards.





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