Paul Philippe Sanguin de Jossigny (1750-1827), artiste de Philibert Commerson. Les dessins de reptiles de Madagascar, de Rodrigues et des Seychelles

Paul Philippe Sanguin de Jossigny was a trooper who began his career at the Isle de France (presently Mauritius) as an aide-de-camp to the governor and ended as captain and engineer before returning reluctantly to Paris. His fame is solely based on his work as artist for Philibert Commerson; after the death of the latter, he brought to the upcoming Muséum d’Histoire naturelle de Paris the naturalist traveller’s collections and manuscripts. These documents included more than one thousand drawings made by Jossigny himself or by Pierre Sonnerat, mostly depicting the plants and animals that could be observed in 1770 in the Mascarenes and Madagascar. We pay special attention to the twenty-two plates depicting reptiles, precisely tortoises and turtles (10), lizards (8) and snakes (4), the whole here reproduced for the first time.