2 vignettes.

2 drawings, graphite on parchment, 6 x 11 cm, unsigned (parchment laid down on 18th-c. paper, trimmed to framing lines, sl. spotted).

Under passe-partout.

Probably a design for book illustrations or printed vignettes depicting scientific experiments of some sort. One with a boy strapped to cords, hanging over a fire. The second representing some experiment with balloons heated by fire. Charles-Nicolas II Cochin (1715-1790) was a French engraver, writer and artist, attached to the Royal Courts of Louis XV and Louis XVI. More than fifteen hundred works by Cochin can be identified. They include historical subjects, book illustrations, and portraits in pencil and crayon. He also collaborated with Diderot and d'Alembert for the "Encyclopédie" project, for which he designed the frontispiece. It is probably in this scientific context that these two sheets can be situated.