[Portrait by Jules Boilly].

Paris, J. [L.] Boilly, 1821. Engraved, tinted broadsheet (36.3 x 27.3 cm). = A rarely-seen portrait of the great French naturalist Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet (or Demonet) de Lamarck (1744-1829). "Often known simply as Lamarck, he was an early proponent of the idea that biological evolution occurred and proceeded in accordance with natural laws. Lamarck developed a particular interest in botany, and later, after he published the three-volume work Flore françoise (1778), he gained membership of the French Academy of Sciences in 1779. Lamarck became involved in the Jardin des Plantes and was appointed to the Chair of Botany in 1788. When the French National Assembly founded the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in 1793, he became a professor of zoology. Lamarck began as an essentialist who believed species were unchanging; however, after working on the molluscs of the Paris Basin, he grew convinced that transmutation or change in the nature of a species occurred over time. He set out to develop an explanation, and on 11 May 1800, he presented a lecture at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in which he first outlined his newly developing ideas about evolution. In 1801, he published Système des animaux sans vertèbres, a major work on the classification of invertebrates, a term which allegedly he coined. In an 1802 publication, he became one of the first to use the term "biology" in its modern sense. Lamarck continued his work as a premier authority on invertebrate zoology. He is remembered, at least in malacology, as a taxonomist of considerable stature. The modern era generally remembers Lamarck for a theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics, called Lamarckism (inaccurately named after him), soft inheritance, or use/disuse theory, which he described in his 1809 Philosophie zoologique." (Wikipedia). The artist, Julien-Léopold Boilly (1796-1874) was noted for his album of lithographs, Iconographie de l'Institut royal de France ou collection des portraits des Membres composant les quatre académies depuis 1814 jusqu'en 1825 (1820-1825). His portraits are much less stiff and formal than many by his contemporaries. Signed by the artist in the lower margin of the portrait and dated 1821. The caption states the date of Lamarck's birth and the years (1779 and 1795) when he was elected as a member of the Académie and of the Institut. Uncut. Scattered, mostly mild, marginal foxing, some light creasing; otherwise very good.