Sébastien Leclerc I, Study for 'The Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts'

At first sight this study for Leclerc’s etching of the same name appears static and highly finished. But closer inspection reveals its surface to be a collage of numerous small pieces of paper, correcting previous attempts underneath. These illustrate Leclerc’s development of the composition, and his manipulation of its intricate elements, in this imagined union of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture with the Royal Academy of Sciences, founded in the artist’s lifetime in Paris, in 1648 and 1666 respectively. Many of the disciplines he depicts, including anatomy, geometry and drawing, would have been considered central to both artistic and scientific training, yet this union of the academies remained an ideal.