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an old document with a piece of paper on top of it and a piece of paper on the bottom of itan old document with writing on it sitting on top of a table
Ader

189 - Jean-Paul GRANDJEAN DE FOUCHY (1707–1788), astronomer.
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Estimate €500 - €700
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Description
Jean-Paul GRANDJEAN DE FOUCHY (1707–1788), astronomer. Letter from the author (‘JP Grandjean the Elder and the Younger’), Paris, 28 February 1724, to Daniel Jousse in Orléans; 3 pages, quarto format, address bearing a red wax seal with a coat of arms (broken). A fine letter from his early years. He complains with humour about his friend’s silence, with an amusing quatrain: ‘That wretched glutton Joussus’…; he thinks him mad, and hopes that ‘the holy season of Lent will bring you to your senses ’. He has bought ‘a book comprising two treatises on arithmetic, one by Gemma Frison and the other by Ramus, with notes on the former and a summary of astronomical fractions, together with the method for determining the position of the sun and moon by heart. […] ‘If you had been sensible, you would have had the calculation for the lunar eclipse of 1 November, but that will have to wait until you have seen the light.’ He can send him ‘a draft of a new treatise on gnomonics, in which I reduce all sundials to the horizontal. ‘My treatise on instruments is making progress; the most difficult part—that is to say, the quarter-circle and the estuy—are almost finished’, as well as ‘the method of drawing an exact meridian line and constructing a gnomon suitable for observing the meridian altitude of the Sun in the manner of Mr De Lisle’. He has ‘a bundle of curious problems’ to submit to him. He concludes with domestic news about his cat, which is pregnant, and specifies the longitude and latitude of his location. Attached is a handwritten fragment concerning ‘reflecting telescopes’.
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Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
About the sale Letters and Autograph Manuscripts – Part I
Auction location
Auction time 10/13/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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