Hubert François Gravelot

Gravelot's design is preparatory for an engraved frontispiece to Volume I of Charles Rollin's “The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, and Persians..." (London, 1738-40). The drawing shows a seated male figure surrounded by Egyptian antiquities, including mummy cases, figurines, and a canopus jar; another figure stands before him, holding up a tablet, while pyramids, an obelisk, and a worshipper making an offering to the statue of a bull fill the background. The engraving was executed by Jacques Philippe Le Bas (1707-1783) and bears the date October 16, 1738.