Mystification (Diderot)
1768 unfinished work written in 1768 by Denis Diderot, first released in 1951
Mystification or l'Histoire des portraits is an unfinished work from 1768 by Denis Diderot. It was published in 1951. A second edition in 1954 by Pierre Daix, annotated by Yves Benot was illustrated with four sketches by Pablo Picasso, for Les Éditeurs français réunis. A film based on the work was directed by Sandrine Rinaldi in 2005.
Plot
The story is based on a true story in which Diderot was also involved. The Russian Ambassador to France, Prince Dmitri Alekseyevich Gallitzin, wanted to marry the 19-year-old Amalie von Schmettau, but had given his former mistress Mlle d'Ornet (in Diderot spelled "Mlle Dornet") several portraits, which he wanted to retrieve before his marriage. The scene takes place in the Paris studio of the Prussian painter Anna Dorothea Therbusch (in Diderot spelled "Mme Therbouche"), where present are the painter, then Miss Dornet, who reclines ill on a sofa, a certain Bonvalet-Desbrosses, allegedly a Turkish doctor, and Diderot himself. The Prince, who is not present, has made use of the artist, the author and the doctor to diagnose to his former mistress that she can only be healthy when she separates herself from the mementos of her lover. The narrative is deliberately unfinished, according to the author, because of the interruption of the project due to the death of Bonvalet-Desbrosses.
“Mystification (Diderot)” enters the record as 1768 unfinished work written in 1768 by Denis Diderot, first released in 1951. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mystification, Diderot and unfinished can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3331748. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1768, 1951, 1954 and 2005.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mystification (Diderot)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.