Louis-Jacques Goussier ( 1722 - 1799)

Louis-Jacques Goussier (1722-1799) was a French illustrator and Encyclopedist.

Goussier is famous for monumental contribution to Diderot’s Encyclopedie. He was the first artist to be hired on that project in 1747 and he did more than 900 of the almost 2,800 plates and directed the drawing of the others. He spent ten years visiting people of all arts and techniques and twenty-five years drawing. He also wrote sixty-one of the articles.

Born poor, he studied mathematics at Pierre Le Guay de Prémontval’s (1716–1764) free school, and then became a teacher himself. The school closed in 1744 and Goussier then started as an illustrator. In 1792, he was hired by the Minister of the Interior (arts and craft division) and in 1794 by the Comité de Salut public (weapons division).