La Tache noire. L'Argus.

Plate taken from the Encyclopédie méthodique, in the volume dedicated to Natural History.

Etching, finely colored by hand, in perfect condition.

Robert Bénard is a French engraver, born in Paris in 1734 and died after 1785.

Specializing in the technique of the burin, Robert Bénard is primarily known for supplying a large number of plates to Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie, beginning with the fourth volume in 1754.

He directed the engraving of the Suite du recueil de planches sur les sciences, les arts libéraux et les arts méchaniques (Planches, Supplément, 1777), worked on the Geneva edition of the Encyclopédie, for which he also directed the engraving, and on that of the Encyclopédie méthodique, which, published beginning in 1782, was "the last and most important French encyclopedia of the eighteenth century."

In 1781, Charles-Joseph Panckoucke announced his plan for an Encyclopédie méthodique, the initial intention of which was to use and correct the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d'Alembert, using two editions, which he cut to group the articles by subject (eventually, twenty-six dictionaries were added to which was a universal vocabulary), thus abandoning alphabetical order in favor of discipline. Most of the plates in this encyclopedia bear the words "Benard direxit" in the lower right-hand corner, indicating that Robert Bénard directed other engravers.

Robert Bénard also worked for the Académie des sciences, particularly on the Arts et Métiers descriptions.