Georgian Book Plate of Montgolfier balloons by Engraver to the King, Henry Mutlow (c. 1756-1827)

Book engraving showing five early balloon ascensions in France: two Montgolfier balloons (Fauxbourg St. Antoine and St. Germain); a 1784 balloon of Jean-Pierre Blanchard; and a Charles and Robert balloon being inflated at Champs-de-Mar and ascending at Versailles on 19 September 1783.

The book plate has creases and two spots of discolouration in the top corners but otherwise is in good condition. ‘Machaines Pl. XIV’ printed above the plate and ‘Mutlow sc. Russell Cot’ below. Engraved by Henry Mutlow (c. 1756-1827), engraver to the King, at Russell Court, Covent Garden, London. Mutlow was best known as an engraver of maps and banknotes, but he also engraved machinery and fashion prints.

The first successful balloon ascent took place in Annonay on June 5, 1783 using the Montgolfiere technique of heating air with a straw fire sufficiently to make the balloons rise. Although subscribers preferred the hydrogen balloons invented by the physicist Jacques Charles, whose first launch was a 13-foot balloon from the Champ-de-Mars in August 1783, the Montgolfiers created a sensation by sending up ever more populated hot-air balloons; a trio of farm animals were the first mammals to fly, on September 19, and the first manned ascent followed two months later, on November 20, when Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d‘Arlandes ascended from the Bois de Boulogne and crossed Paris, covering a total distance of 5 1/2 miles in approximately 20 minutes. (Rozier was later killed in an attempted balloon crossing of the English Channel.) The first flight of a passenger-carrying hydrogen balloon was designed and manned by Jacques Charles, who on December 1, 1783 made a two-hour ascent from Paris, landing near a village 27 miles distant. Charles‘s hydrogen balloon, constructed with the aid of the celebrated artisans the Robert brothers, formed the prototype for later modern balloon construction.