French Buttons/Diderot’s prints, part 4:
Detail below:

“Buttons in this shop are made out if resin applied to a metal shank. The artisan with his hammer raised is about to punch out a disk if metal, to be handed to the second man who immerses it in a little tub of resin kept molten on the brazier which sits before him on the table, and then presses in the design from an appropriate mould. When cool, the buttons are buffed and polished at the window.”
Although the translation is unclear, quoting from ‘A Structural and Functional Analysis of Eighteenth Century Buttons’ by Stephen Hinks 1988 , “for most of the eighteenth century thin domed brass, silver, and rarely pewter faces were applied over bone or wood button backs. The button faces were normally hand-stamped into the desired shapes, although occasionally the faces were cast. These faces were filled with clay or resinous filler to provide added strength, and then crimped over the button backs.” The translation does not mention what form the shanks took, however, quoting again, “Initially (from 1750) the bone or wood button backs on these stamped brass buttons had four holes … Catgut was sewn through these four holes to form the shank, and was knotted on the inside of the button. The interior of the button was filled with a type of cement, normally of a resinous or asphaltum base, before the brass face was applied … (later) the catgut was replaced with thin brass wire, secured in the same way … (later again) the four holes (in the mould) were replaced with one central hole. A wire shank was attached to the button through this hole with the ends of the shank bent against the button back interior … By the late 1770s each of these shank varieties was in use, with the eyed shanks becoming more widespread.”