Edme-Louis Daubenton

Georges-Louis Leclerc, the Comte de Buffon engaged Edme-Louis Daubenton to supervise the coloured illustrations for the monumental Histoire Naturelle (1749–89).

The Planches enluminée started to appear in 1765 and finally counted 1,008 plates, all engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet (1731–1800), and all painted by hand.

973 plates relate to birds; others illustrate especially butterflies but also other insects, corals, etc.

As Buffon did not follow the system of biological nomenclature developed by Carl von Linné in 1783, Pieter Boddaert (1730–1796) published a table of the correspondence of the names used with their Linnean binomial names.

Edme-Louis Daubenton's tombstone is in the church of Saint-Pierre in Avon, Seine-et-Marne.