
Jean-Michel Moreau, the Younger, was Designer of Royal Entertainments (and soon to be Royal Designer and Engraver) when this drawing was among those shown at the Salon du Louvre of 1781, where it was extolled by the encyclopedist and critic Denis Diderot. As engraved by C. F. Macret in 1782, the subject of the scene was identified as a group of eminent philosophers and ancient authors—Montaigne, Voltaire, Homer, Plato, and Plutarch—welcoming into heaven Jean-Jacques Rousseau, author of The Social Contract.