Michel Butterfield (London, c. 1643 - Paris, 1724), the Parisian Apprentice of Jean Choizy

摘要

Since a first article published in 2012 about French silver drawing instruments and their manufacturers, numerous discoveries have been made, both in terms of instruments themselves and lives of instrument makers, thanks to many collectors and institutions that have 'rediscovered' hidden treasures, but also through an extensive research in the available archives. Thus, it appeared that some dates mentioned in the literature were inconsistent and therefore had to be corrected. Moreover, the real links between various manufacturers and their families have been clarified and documented as well as the apprenticeships of the greatest masters hitherto unknown. We will focus here on Michel Butterfield, one of the most famous French manufacturers of mathematical instruments at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, whose production will run over nearly 50 years.