Lettres cabalistiques, ou correspondance philosophique, historique et critique, entre deux cabalistes, divers esprits elementaires, & le Seigneur Astaroth
A satirical epistolary treatise of letters exchanged between cabalists, elemental spirits and the demon Astaroth, written by the freethinking Marquis d'Argens and published in The Hague by Pierre Paupie in 1741 for a reading public of Enlightenment skeptics. The two copperplates by Jacob van der Schley are a framed oval author portrait in a curled wig with lettered plinth, and an allegorical frontispiece where a winged figure draws back a curtain over a crowd of mourners while a vaulted crypt scene runs beneath, useful for engraved cartouche frames, drapery-and-cloud staging, and captioned title panels.
