George-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

George-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon, an eighteenth-century French naturalist, is the subject of this 1753 oil painting by François-Hubert Drouais. Buffon is best known for his multivolume work of natural history, Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière (1749–1804). The Histoire was widely read and very influential, making Buffon Europe's preeminent naturalist. After he died in 1788, Buffon's associates completed the final volumes of his comprehensive work.