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Nom
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Canivet Jacques
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Date de naissance
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6 March 1714
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Date de mort
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5 August 1773
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Lieu de naissance
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Fontenay
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Lieu de mort
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Paris
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Biographie
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The nephew and successor of Claude Langlois (1), Canivet was the son of Pierre Canivet day. worker, and Marie Langlois , the eldest of Claude Langlois' sisters. Working in Paris from 1735/6 onwards, he was received into the Founders' Corporation 'par Privilège des Galleries du Louvre' 30 January 1743 (2). In the same year Langlois presented to the Académie des Sciences the improved form of pantograph that Canivet had developed. In 1747, on the death of his cousin, Jean Baptiste Lordelle, he adopted his sign, à la Sphère. Like his uncle, Canivet became 'Ingenieur du Roi et de MM de l'Académie Royale des Sciences' following a competition in 1756 (3). In the same year he constructed a transit instrument for Darquier (4). In 1762, 12in radius quadrants of Canivet's manufacture were used in the geodetic survey of the Rhine from Mainz to Wesel (5). and in 1766 he made 80 copies of the toise de Pérou when this was substituted for the toise du Châtelet as the length standard for the kingdom by royal proclamation of 16 May. These copies were distributed to the procureurs généraux of the provincial parlements (6). A further copy was ordered by the Austrian astronomer J. X. Liesganig (1719-1799) when he was comissioned by Maria Theresa in 1760 to survey the surroundings of Vienna, and another was included in an exceptionally large travelling chest of drawing instruments executed by Canivet between 16 May 1766 and 1 October 1768 for Claret de Fleurieu (7). In 1766 Canivet travelled to England in order to study the making of octants. (8). The leading maker of the mid-century, in 1768 he was so overwhelmed with making astronomical instruments for use in observing the transit of Venus that he was unable to. make a graphometer for de Saussure and advised him to order one in London (9). A transit instrument by him was carried on the expedition of Lapérouse (10). Canivet was one of the few to undertake large scale observatory and geodetic instruments delivering for exampe 6ft mural quadrants to the Paris and Milan Observatories (1765), and a 6ft sectors to Milan and Vilna (11). For the private observatory of the Marquis de Courtanvaux at Colombes, Canivet supplied two astronomical quadrants, one of 2ft radius, the other of 2 1/2. Commenting on these Bernouilli noted that there was far too little illumination for the reading microscope of the 2ft 'un défaut que j'ai trouvé dans plusieurs instrumens du même Artiste' (12). Canivet supplied numerous instruments to Courtanvaux, and Lalande described Canivet's method of obtaining precise slow-motion in a 3ft portable quadrant. This implies that the instrument he described in detail was of Canivet's production, and the system seems to have been applied to Courtanvaux's 2 1/2 ft quadrant although Bernouilli states that it was of Courtanvaux's own invention. Lalande also mentions that Canivet supplied several European observatories with 6ft radius portable quadrants fitted with two sighting telescopes (13). In the summer of 1773 Canivet supplied instruments to the Collège de Dijon (14). Canivet was unusual in dating many of his instruments. Examples at present known range from 1754 to the year of his death, 1774. He was succeeded by one of his pupils, Lennel. (qv). Although best known for his mathematical instruments, Canivet evidently retailed a wider range for in 1759 he was named as supplying the new spirit-of-wine thermometers developed by Réaumur and Fahrenheit. (15).
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Notes biographiques
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1 Mascart.
2 Augarde 66.
3 Mascart; Daumas 343; Maindron 34. See also La France Généalogique, lviii N° 254? 2011, 31-33 which supplies Canivet's date of birth but without citing a source.
4 Darquier ii-iii
5 Bertaut, Les Ingénieurs géographe…
6 Wolf, Poids …, 20-21 citing Lalande, Astronomie xv, par 10, 2649.
7 Walter Fischer in D.S.B., vii 351a; Fleurieu's chest was displayed at the Biennale des Antiquaires, Paris, September 2012.
8. Rocca & Launay 166.
9. Bibl Universitaire de Genève: Archive de Saussure, Carton 9 f 239.
10. L'Hour, Mourot & de Seynes.
11. Daumas 166, 344. The MIlan. (Brera) instruments are described by Miotto, Tagliaferri & Tucci 36-39.
12. Bernouilli 160-61. the 2 1/2 foot instrument was lot 1 in the sale of Courtanvaux's instruments in 1782.
13. Astronomie, 2nd edition ii, 747& 757.
14. These were a graphometer with a sighting telescope 240 livres
a foot for the graphometer 12 livres
a compass 48 livres
magnetised needles 6 livres each
an open-sight alidade for a plane table 36 livres
a plane table 24 livres
which gave a total outlay of 402 livres including transport and an unknown number of compass needles. Archives départmentales de la Côte-d'Or, D20, 471 cited from Dubois.
15 L'Année littéraire ou suite des lettres sur quelques écrits…, 1759, 16 July 1759.
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Bibliographie
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Description et usage du pantographe, nommé commlunement singe, considerablement changé et perfectionné … (de l'Imprimerie de la Veuve Thiboust, Place Cambrai, n.p; n.d. (Paris 1744).
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Adresse ; enseigne ; période ; source
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Place du Marché Neuf, Paris A la Sphère, May 1747- (Augarde 70),
Quai de l'Horloge, 1747-67 (à la Sphère from 1753 onwards)
A la descente du Pont Neuf Paris , A la Sphére (Tablettes 1772)
Quai de l'Ecole, July 1767.
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Identifiant
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938
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ark:/18469/1r0pk