Born: 7 August 1735, France
Died: 4 October 1820
Country most active: France
Also known as: Claudine Poullet, Claudine Guyton de Morveau
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
Chemist, mineralogist, and meteorologist Claudine Picardet was one of the most prolific scientific translators of the 1780s. Working in the Bureau de traduction de Dijon at Dijon Academy, she translated three books and thousands of papers on topics including chemistry, mineralogy, and astronomy from Swedish, English, German, and Italian into her native French, even creating new words when none existed that served the meanings. The Bureau group also replicated experiments to confirm instructions and results from the original texts. Picardet was the Bureau’s only non-academic and only woman. As well as being more productive than any of her colleagues, she was the only one to work in so many languages and the only one publishing in journals other than the Parisian Annales de chimie. Yet some later writers have credited others in the group for work that Picardet produced, starting with of all things her obituary. When she died in 1820, lawyer and journalist Claude-Nicolas Amanton wrote of the “very beautiful woman” and referred to “her reputation as a woman of remarkable beauty”—while he mentioned her wit, that she was learned and that men of science and literature sought her company, he credited the men of the Bureau for her accomplishments. It has also been suggested that the French translation of the first two volumes of Opuscula physica et chemica (originally written in Latin), which was published under the name of the Bureau’s leader, was actually the work of several uncredited translators including Picardet.
The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.
Claudine Picardet was notable in chemistry, mineralogy, and meteorology during the late 18th century. Claudine Picardet excelled as a scientific translator, converting works from Swedish, English, German, and Italian into French. Her translations, covering books and manuscripts, united diverse scientific knowledge.
In addition to her translation work, Picardet hosted influential gatherings in Dijon and Paris, fostering intellectual exchange among scientific and literary circles. She also actively collected meteorological data, contributing significantly to the field.
Her impact extended to establishing Dijon and Paris as scientific hubs during the pivotal era of the chemical revolution. Claudine Picardet’s contributions endure as a testament to her lasting influence on science, literature, and intellectual discourse.