Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métieres, par une sociéte de gens de lettres. Recueil de planches, sure les sciences, les arts libéraux, et les arts méchaniques, avec leur explication.

By the middle of the 18th century papermills and papermaking had become so widespread and indispensable that Denis Diderot’s landmark Encyclopedia, a supreme product of the Age of Enlightenment, records in words and illustrates in many plates the personnel, machinery, and materials used in papermaking.

This two page folio plate depicts an idealized papermill and its water wheel and surrounding source of water.

Vanderbilt Library has a first edition of this encyclopedia which was published in 35 folio volumes – 28 in Paris, and 7 in Amsterdam between the years 1751-1780.