L.-N. van Blarenberghe et le Traité sur la cavalerie de Drummond de Melfort (1776)

Drummond de Melfort’s Traité sur la Cavalerie (1776), illustrated by Louis-Nicolas van Blarenberghe. Outstandingly innovative, the Traité sur la Cavalerie (Treatise on Cavalry) by count Louis Hector Drummond de Melfort, published in 1776 after a gestation of thirty years, crowns a briefly mentioned military career. This work is accompanied by a magnificent atlas of 32 etchings executed by 25 engravers — nowadays quite forgotten or even ignored by the dictionaries — after drawings by Louis-Nicolas van Blarenberghe. This illustration, of which a rare preliminary drawing has been uncovered, remains the most monumental one ever requested from this artist. The publication of the Traité, supported by important subscribers, had an undeniable repercussion upon his career, here related in broad outline. The Traité sur la Cavalerie, twice republished, is inscribed in the tradition of the great etchings books of the enlightened 18th century.