Beschreibung:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>This article analyses the manner in which Diderot's novel <jats:italic>La Religieuse</jats:italic> (1796) has been interpreted in book illustration. There has long been an assumption that Jean‐François Le Barbier was the first illustrator of <jats:italic>La Religieuse</jats:italic>, whereas this article posits that a number of significant artists preceded him: an anonymous artist (1796), the designer P. J. Challiou (1797) and another unknown illustrator (1797). This analytical investigation is followed by an overview of viewer–voyeur trends in the subsequent illustration of <jats:italic>La Religieuse</jats:italic>, suggesting that core representation dilemmas, together with the interpretative strategies adopted, vary remarkably little across more than two centuries of reception and illustration.</jats:p>