GEORG FRIEDRICH SCHMIDT (1712-1775) Portrait of Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751), Physician and Philospher at the Court of Frederick the Great, in the Guise of Laughing Democritus, 1757

engraving on paper image: 24 x 18 cm Julien Offray de La Mettrie was a French physician and philosopher, and one of the earliest of the French materialists of the Enlightenment. He is best known for his 1747 work L'homme machine.