-A\ .X^^,./V^'>_i '■■%l^i'"\,5f<^t/^ /i'7jf^ i JJ FRENCH ENGRAVERS. AND DRAUGHTSMEN OF THE XVIII CENTURY Jalifornia gional Dility UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES UM-VEKSITY of GmmJiiJHi*, AT ■ ■■ t^ ANGELA UBRARX FRENCH ENGRAVERS AND DRAUGHTSMEN of the XVIIIth Century Uniform with this volume By lady DILKE Imperial Svo. 28/. net each volume FRENCH PAINTERS OF THE XVIIIth CENTURY. FRENCH ARCHITECTS AND SCULPTORS OF THE XVIIIth CENTURY. FRENCH DECORATION AND FURNITURE IN THE XVIIIth CENTURY. LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO. z ^ o J u. C3 M < H TO U' <^ w a ^ o M ■'U; < 2 D < *- J < FRENCH ENGRAVERS AND DRAUGHTSMEN of the XVIIIth Century By lady DILKE AUTHOR OF "the RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE," " CLAUDE LORRAIN, SA VIE ET SES " «c , CEUVRES, "art IN THE MODERN STATE, OR THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV., "FRENCH PAINTERS OF THE XVIIITH CENTURY," "FRENCH ARCHITECTS AND SCULPTORS OF THE XVIIITH CENTURY," "FRENCH DECORATION AND FURNITURE IN THE XVIIITH CENTURY," ETC. LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN 1902 i "i 6 i i 9 i CHISWICK PRESS : CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. T00K3 COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. Librae PREFACE OS WITH this volume ends the series in which I have attempted to sketch the leading features of French Art in the eighteenth century and to trace the aftion of those social laws under the pressure of which the arts take shape just as dogma crystallizes under the influence of preceding speculation. The difficulties of sele6lion and omission have been great, and every day I have received fresh suggestions as to the way in which I ought to have dealt with my subject. For my purpose it seemed better not to venture on a systematic history but to follow lines on which I have previously found myself able to interest my readers. I therefore have throughout selected in each division one or two artists who seemed to represent special tendencies connefted with the life of the day and whose work, still existing, could be treated in some detail. In respeft to the illustrations of these final pages, special difficulties, not unforeseen, have had to be encountered. Archi- te6lure, Painting, or Sculpture can secure better representation in a volume of this size than can be obtained for the art of Engraving. The reprodu6tion of an engraving, even by a costly process in skilled hands, is always unsatisfadfory unless carried out on the same scale as the original. Of a necessity the texture of the execution is confused by redudlion : the lines, crosslines, hatchings and stipplings run together and are choked in each other so that what should be a luminous expression of form becomes a meaning- less pond of ink. As far as possible, therefore, examples have been selected that could be given of their full size. Yet in spite of the friendly help of M. Bouchot and his staff at the Cabinet des Estampes, the equally kind services of my friends of the Gazette des Beaux Arts and the counsels of that distinguished engraver, V Preface. M. Achille Jacquet, I find myself baffled by very delicate work such as ChofFard's portrait of himself in the " Contes de la Fon- taine," or the exquisite head of Marie-Leczinska engraved after Nat- tier by Gaucher. That these reproductions are even — approximately — excellent is due to the zealous supervision of M. Andre Marty and the skill of Paris printers. Drawings of course come out better, and I owe grateful thanks to Baroness James de Rothschild ; to Madame Aboucaya, M. Jacques Doucet, M. Beurdeley and other coUedtors for the gene- rosity with which they have allowed me to make use of their treasures. Emilia F. S. Dilke. VI CONTENTS CHAPTER I The Comte de Caylus and the great "Amateurs" Systematic account of Engravers and Draughtsmen difficult. Method employed. Engraving fashionable. Madame dc Pompadour and other amateurs. Campion. Vivant Denon. Painter-etchers. Coypel. Fragonard. The Count dc Caylus exercised influence over every branch of art. Specially praftised engraving. His charafter and pretensions. Exploration of the Levant and Asia Minor. Life with his mother. Rcproduftions of Crozat's treasures. Of the Royal CoUeftions. Etchings after Watteau. After Bouchardon. Recueil d'Antiquites in which his own colleftions are reproduced and described. Gifts to the Cabinet des Estampes. Fortune and title of Duke. Defefts of his learning and his art, yet debt to him immense. Generosity to the Academy. Madame Geoffrin. Mile. Quinault-Dufresne. De Caylus and Cochin. Marmontel. The Encyclopaedists. Death of dc Caylus. Watclct. Exceptional fortune and position. Salons. Watelet and Mme. Le Comte. George Sand. Fantastic account of them in " Lettres d'un Voyageur." They leave for Italy with the abbe Copette as chaperon. King of Sardinia at Turin ; Pope, Cardinal Albano, Princess Borghese and others at Rome welcome the couple. They rejoin M. Le Comte in Paris. " L'Art de Pcindrc." Carmontcllc. Marcenay de Ghuy. AbbedeSaint- Non. Fragonard. "Voyage pittoresque de Naples et dans les deux Siciles." Engravers and specialists engaged. Ruin of Saint-Non and his brother. Dc Caylus, Watelet and Saint-Non embody three distindl phases of the century ..... page i CHAPTER II Mariette and Basan Mariette. Close friendship with de Caylus and Bouchardon. Connoisseurship and exaft learning. His colleilions. Family traditions. Proud type of best French middle class. His taste not infallible. "Belle main de Michel Ange." Preference for the masters of great periods in spite of fashion. Estimation of his own colleftion of drawings as best chosen in Europe. Early relations with Prince Eugene. Two years in Vienna. Letters given by the Prince. The yellow diamond. Engravings, drawings and "ouvrages de bronze " sent from Paris to Vienna. Letters to Temanza and Bottari. The "A. B. C. Dario, Mariette." Pere Orlandi. Rosalba Carriera. Intimacy with de Caylus began probably when she visited Pierre Crozat. The " Letter on Lionardo" due to collaboration with de Caylus, as also the descriptions of " Peintures Anciennes " which accompanied vii Contents, reproduftions by PietroSanti Bartoli. Printing business sold. Marictte clefted " Honorairc associc-librc " of the Academy. Secretaire du roi et Contr6Ieur-gcncral dc la grandc chancelleric. Madame Geoftrin. Fortune. Gaignat sale. Wille. " Afte de partage." Madame Mariette. Sale of Mariettc's collcftions. Heirs rejcdl the offers of the Crown. Colleftions dispersed. Mariette had direfted the sale of Crozat's coUcftions. Those of Mariette were handled by Pierre-Francois Basan. His taste and learning greatly inferior to his task. Successful dealer. Commercial instinds. Pupil of Fcssard, a man of unscrupulous push. Basan visits Holland, Flanders, England. Keeps a manufaftory of engravings in Paris. His assistants. His technique. Did not engrave any large proportion of the work under his dire(!lion. " Recueils " published by him. Hotel in the rue Serpcnte. Intimacy with Wille. Separation from his wife. His shop one of the sights of Paris. Publication of " Metamorphoses d'Ovide." Various sales handled by him. None equal in importance to that of Mariette. Inaugurates system of illustrated catalogues. Sells Wille's collcftions. Retires from business. Contrast between Mariette and Basan. Basan bridges the gulf which separates the learned and dignified printseller and connoisseur, of whom Mariette the most accomplished type, from the dealers of to-day ..... page i8 CHAPTER III Le Chevalier Cochin Social success and power of Cochin fils. Came of a family of engravers. His mother Louise-Madelaine Horthemels. Her sisters, Mme. Tardieu and Mme. Belle. All engraved. Cochin pere, taft in seizing spirit and style of dissimilar masters. Watteau. Chardin. De Troy. " Pompes funebres." That of "Madame, Premiere Dauphinc," his best work. Chief success of his son in delineation of Court ceremonials. Catalogue of his work by Jombert. Severe discipline in the house of Cochin pere. Cochin fils escapes to the work- shop of Le Bas. Rendering of " La Decoration de I'illumination et du feu d'artifice" in honour of the marriage of Mme. Premiere. Engraves entertainment given to Dauphin at Meudon and the " Porape funibre" of Elisabeth-Thercse de Lorraine. Superb drawing of "Reception par Louis XV de Said Mehemet, 174.2." Praised by Bouchardon. Cochin employed by the Slodtz at the Menus Plaisirs. Reproduces the marriage of Dauphin and other Fetes at Versailles. De Bonneval. His carelessness. Good impressions of the Fetes rare. Madame de Pompadour sends Cochin to Italy with her brother, SoufBot, and the abbe Le Blanc. Cochin a delightful companion. His letters. " Voyage d'ltalie." Return to Paris. Court favour. Received Academician. Leftures. Appointed " Secretaire-his- toriographe " to the Academy. Mariette's estimate of his charafter. Patronage. Alle- gorical designs. "Fables de la Fontaine." De Montenault. M. Bombarde. Work for Masse on "Galerie de Versailles." Employs Miger. Cochin's household in the Louvre. " L'oracle du salon de Madame GeofFrin." Drew and designed incessantly, though he ceased to engrave under the pressure of public and social life. Book-illustrations. "Le Lutrin." " Pastor Fido." "Virgile." Portraits. Drawing of Life School. Amassed no fortune. "Ports de mer de France." Anxiety as to accomplishment of the set. Direftions to his executors. Difficulties. Wille called to arbitrate. How was Cochin's work affe&ed by "society"? His pleasures. The embarrassments of his last years. His cousin robs him. He struggles on for four years, scarcely knowing how to feed his dependent house. Library could not be sold. Dies in great distress .......... page 37 CHAPTER IV The Drevet and Jean-Fran90is Daulle The traditions of Edelinck, Nanteuil and the Audran inherited by the Drevet. The family of Drevet de Loire one of the first in their distrift. Pierre Drevet with Germain Audran at Lyons, then with Gerard Audran at Paris. Associate of the Academy in 1703. Pierre-Imbert Drevet presents himself in 1724.. Father and son work together. Portrait of viii Bossuet after Rigaiid, and Adricmie Lccouvrcur as Cornelia after Coypcl. Portrait of Contents. Samuel Bernard. Adriennc Lecouvreur last worii of Picrrc-Imbert Drevct. Never recovers from sunstroke received 1726. Dates of illness and death. With him passes away the fixity of style which marked the school of the Audran. Pupils of Pierre Drcvet. Francois Chereau. His portrait of Nicolas de Launay. Jacques Chc'reau's portrait of Marie Lec- zinska after Van Loo. Simon Vallc'c. Nicolas Dupuis. Rigaud left the Drevet for Jean- Francois Daullc. On arriving from Abbeville Daullc employed by Hecquet. Daullc's engraving of Mignard's portrait of his daughter shown to Rigaud. Portrait of Gendron en- graved by Daullc. Portraits of Rigaud and his wife. That of the Comtcsse de Caylus. Daullc employs the Hessian engraver Wille. He engraves or helps Daullc to engrave portraits of " The Pretender " and his brother " The Duke of York." Maupertuis. Subjefts after Boucher and Poussin. Prints engraved for the " Galerie de Dresde." Portrait of Anastasia of Hesse-Homburg. Portrait of La Peyronie. Diflicultics as to sufficient pay- ment for "Anastasia." De Caylus supports General Betsky in his refusal to fully pay Daulle for his work. Cochin takes up the cause of Daulle in vain. Daulle dies leaving his family ill provided for. Wille's estimate of Daullc. His line mechanically dexterous. In this respeft he resembles Wille, but his efFeft is usually soft rather than brilliant. He lacks the science and power which enabled the elder men to seize on the heart of their subjefts. Mariette said justly, "il pcchoit par le dessin " ...... page 56 CHAPTER V Wille and his Pupils Wille came to Paris so young that his training was French. Father turns a deaf ear to appeals for help. He raises money from " un bon juif." Presents himself to Largilliere. Works for an arquebusicr on the Pont Marie. Moves to be near the Comcdie Fran^aise. Tries watchmaking. Works for Odieuvre. Engraves portraits of Largilliere and his daughter. Schmidt introduces him to Rigaud, who gives him his portrait of the Duke de Belle-Isle to reproduce. Father sends money. Wille spends it. Silver hilt to his sword. Schmidt agree by the Academy. Wille takes lodgings in the same house as Diderot. Works for Daulle to maintain himself whilst he engraves the portrait of the Duke de Belle-Isle. Success of the portrait. Satisfaftion of the Duke. Liberality of his treasurer. Abrupt end of Wille's "Memoir." Wille's growing reputation probably rendered Schmidt anxious to leave Paris. His departure rather sudden. Wille's journal begins sixteen years after the close of the "Memoir." Constant and friendly relations with Schmidt. Charafter and qualities common to the work of Schmidt and that of Wille. Metallic effeft. Etchings by Schmidt. Portrait of Wille by Greuze. Pupils of Wille. Massard the engraver of "La Cruche cassee." Pierre-Alexandre Tardieu. Marie-Antoinette as a vestal virgin by Dumont. "Lepelleticr de Saint-Fargeau mort " engraved by Tardieu after David. Avril. Berwic. Wille's friendly relations with his pupils. At first Wille devoted himself chiefly to portraits. His portraits of Masse and Marigny after Tocque. He decides to do no more portraits. Declines to do that of the Queen of England. He refuses Clairon on the ground of short sight. Other work more lucrative. "La Liseuse." Schmutzer sent from Vienna to Wille by Kaunitz. "La Tricoteuse," "La Devideuse " fetch high prices. "Le petit Physicien." "La Menagere." Kaunitz pays seven louis d'or for the early portrait of St. Florentin by Wille. "L'Instruftion paternelle " after Terburg. Wille receives diamond ring from the Dowager Empress of Austria. Fashion for great people to visit Wille on coming to Paris. Duke de Deux Fonts, Prince of Monaco, Struensee and others. Robert Strange, Woollet, Vivares. Alderman Boydell. Ryland. Com- missions from dealers. Wille attends all great sales. De Caylus. De Julienne. Surugue. Much work unworthy Wille's skill. Limited interests. Charafter of his journal. Feeling for his wife. Little afFeftion for his family. Indifference to all but personal concerns page 69 IX Contents. CHAPTER VI Laurent Cars, Flipart and Le Bas Work of" Laurent Cars. Its relation to "la gravure d'histoire." Printselling business inherited from his father. Brilliant pupils of Laurent Cars. He was a great artist. His " school " did not attain the commercial importance of that of Le Bas. Marietta's encomium. Engravings after Le Moine. " Les F£tcs Venitiennes " after Watteau. " Camargo dansant " after Lancrct. Illustrations to Molidre after Boucher. The "Malade iraaginaire." Gaucher. Repeated success of Laurent Cars in academical competitions. Tardieu pi^re the master both of Cars and of Le Bas. Beauvarlet, the pupil of Cars, co-operates with him on the portrait of Clairon as Medea. Grimm's criticisms. Engravings by Beauvarlet after de Troy and Van Loo. Reception by the Academy delayed. Madame Dubarry in hunting dress. Other pupils of Laurent Cars : Saint-Aubin, Chedel, Jardinier, Pasquier, Jean-Jacques Flipart. Great powers of assimilation shown by Flipart. " Tempetes " after Vernet. " Chasse au Tigre " and " Chasse a I'Ours " after Boucher and Van Loo. Develops slowly. Frontispiece of" Description des Fetes donnees pour le second mariage du Dauphin." Notice of Flipart by Gaucher. He exhibits in 1755 "Jeune Dessinateur " after Chardin. Engravings after Vicn in 1765. Devotes himself wholly to Greuze. "Chasse au Tigre" and " L'Accordee de Village" works of the same period. Cars then dead. All the younger men crowding to Le Bas. Notice of Le Bas by Joullain. Early difliculties. Marriage with Elizabeth Duret. Sale of the marriage gifts. Organizes atelier. Pupils live under his roof. His treatment of them. Jovial familiarity and mockery. Contrast the pleasant skill of Le Bas with the virility of Cars. Le Bas in touch with every later development of his art from the "vignette" to the " estampe galante." His pupils: Cochin, Ficquet, Eisen, Le Mire, ChofFard and others. Ryland, Strange, Rehn. Letters to Rehn. Easy family relations. Dancing. Muffs for Darcis and Madame Le Bas. Caricatures. Le Bas could do no portraits. Received on "Conversation galante" after Lancret. Bright efFeft. " Manon Lescaut." Molicrc. Renderings of " Le maitrc galant " and " Le pied de boeuf." Sacrifices his profession to the "shop." Honours. Diderot. Le Bas engraves half price for de Caylus. "Les Ports de France." Love of gain and generosity. Engravings of masonic ceremonies. Quarrel with Le Prince. Engraves the " Fetes Flamandes " of the Duke de Choiseul's colleftion. Madame de Pompadour. " Figures de I'histoire de France." " Ceremonies Chinoises." "Ports de France " unfinished when he dies. Disastrous results of his enterprise with Moreau le jeune. Double-dealing of Moreau . _. page 84 CHAPTER VII The Pupils of Le Bas and the Engravers of the Vignette The " graveurs de livres " a class apart. Galerie de Dresde, de Florence, de Dussel- dorf. Galerie de Versailles. Nicolas de Larmessin engraves portraits and vignettes. Change in size and shape of book. Small volumes popular. Pupils of Le Bas illustrate famous small books in latter half of the century. His method. Influence extends further than his own school. Lempereur forms Delaunay, the master of the "estampe galante." The style of Delaunay that of a pupil of Le Bas. The " Henriade." "Don Quichotte." "Fables de la Fontaine." Noel Le Mire. The " Boccaccio " illustrated by Boucher, Eisen, Cochin and Gravelot. Le Mire's work on this book. Engraves ten designs by Eisen for "Le Temple de Gnide." The de Scve Racine. Vignettes engraved by Charles Baquoy. Fermiers- gencraux edition of the "Contes de la Fontaine." Le Mire employs Le Veau to prepare his plates for this work. Joseph de Longueil. " Le roi Candaule " and "Lemari confesseur." Admirable qualities of these marvellous volumes. Alliance between ornament and illustra- tion. Choff'ard. The head and tail pieces of the " Contes." Tailpiece of " Le Rossignol." Etienne Ficquet. Grateloup. Etienne Gaucher. Miniature portrait of Marie Leczinska. Portraits of Joseph II. and Marie-Antoinette. " Couronnement du buste de Voltaire." Drawing in Lord Carnarvon's colleftion. "Contes Moraux " of Marmontel. The Banier Ovid. ChofFard signs the title-page. Well-known names : Le Mire, Le Veau, Augustin de Saint-Aubin, Masquelier, Nee, Baquoy, Delaunay, Basan himself. Le Veau makes a great X advance. His contributions to the Molicre of 1773. The other engravers of these illustra- Contents. tions. Special excellence of Dclaunay's work. " Le Cocu imaginaire." The portrait of Molicre engraved by Cathelin. " Fables de Dorat." Co-operation of Masquclier and Nee. "Chansons de la Borde." Only the first volume shows real perfcftion. " History of Cos- tume." Martini. Baquoy. Malbcste. Splendid excellence of this work contrasts with the elegance and slighter graces of other works of the day. " Pastor Fido." " Origines des Graces." Of these we may weary ; of the " Monument du Costume " we cannot weary page 97 CHAPTER VIII Gravelot and Eisen Gravelot and the designers for illustrated books. The modern novel the creation of the eighteenth century. Gravelot shows us how to illustrate it. Pupil of Restout. Long absence from France in St. Domingo. Return. Encouraged by Boucher. Comes to London. Is said to have remained in England thirteen years. Designs trade-cards, bill- heads and illustrations. "L'Astrc'e." Frontispiece to the Kit-Cat Club. '= Songs in the Opera of Flora." Gay's "Fables." Rapin de Thoyras' " History of England." Sketch of the House of Commons. "Pamela." Shakespeare. "Tom Jones." Mariette's estimate of Gravelot. Some doubt as to exaft time spent in London. "A Conversation with a Romish Priest." "LeLedeur." The "Galerie du Palais " or " The Unlucky Glance." "Sophie de Francourt." " Histoire de Miss Jenny." "Fabricant de Londrcs " and " L'Honncte Crimincl " : Fenouillot de Falbaire. All these have an English air. Other work intensely French. Most admirable work in illustrations to the "Contes Moraux " of Marmontel. Fine drawing in " Exercices de I'Infanterie." Nanine. Beauty of the vignettes to the " Decameron." Studies of children serve for the "Almanack " of 1760. Gravelot's private life. Marries twice. Position in London. Correspondence with David Garrick. He executes a drawing of Clairon for the medal struck in her honour by Garrick's order. Gravelot writes to Garrick of the " Sccchia Rapita," the Voltaire and Colic's " Partie de Chasse de Henri IV." Voltaire delighted with his work. Colman's Terence. Did Gravelot fly from England on account of the treatment he received after the battle of Fontenoy ? Lavish employment of vignettes. Mathieu Marais. Gravelot creates the illustration of "Julie," but Eisen illustrates " Emile." Eisen exhibits at the Salon of the Academy of St. Luke in 1751. Designs for the " Eloge de la Folic." Drawings for Madame de Pompadour. Eisen's marriage. Vignettes for the Boileau of 174.7. Illus- tration of the "Contes de la Fontaine." Eisen's irregular life. His friends. Le Bas godfather to his eldest son. Madame Wille godmother to another in 1749. Wille never mentions Eisen. Quarrel between Eisen and Le Mire over the "Contes." Eisen's faulty and careless drawing. Drawings for the " Contes " chief title to fame. Superior in elegance even to later work on "Metamorphoses d'Ovide." " Les quatre parties du jour." " Les quatre Saisons." Commissions for sacred subjefts executed by Eisen. Drawings for du Rosoi's "Les Sens." "Henriade." Eisen not present at the weddings of his son and daughter. Had left his wife and family. Drawings for Dorat's "Les Baisers," for " Le Temple de Gnide." These books have a better aspeft than " Les Sens." Poor work by young Wille mixed with Eisen's drawings. Cochin's influence on Eisen's allegorical designs. Various contributions to the Academy of St. Luke. Leaves for Brussels. Dies at Brussels. Land- lord's letter to the "Dame St. Martin." Madame Eisen. The " Scellc." Eisen's afi^airs page 1 1 1 CHAPTER IX The Saint-Aubin, Moreau le jeune, Boilly, Prieur Germain de Saint-Aubin. "Les Papillonneries humaines." Gabriel dc Saint-Aubin. Competes for the Grand Prix. " Les nouvellistes." " Vue du Salon du Louvre en I'annc'e 1753." Tries for a place as "elcve protege." " Bal d'Auteuil." " Ballet dansc dans le xi Contents. Camaval du Parnasse." "Dimanchcs de Saint-Cloud." "Chaises miscs aux Thuilleries " and " Tonncau d'arrosage." Bohemian spirit. Notes in Salon Catalogues. Exhibits at the Salon dcs Maitres in 1774. Exhibits at the Colyscc. Gabriel as professor. " Parade aux thdatrcs du Boulevard." Drawings in the collcftion of M. Valton. Last work by Gabriel. "Seance de physique a la monnaic." Gabriel lives in the street. His clothes. Death at his brother's house. Disorder of his lodgings. Augustin de Saint-Aubin. Pupil of Etienne Fessard. Early work. Engravings after Gravelot for the "Decameron." " Promenade des remparts de Paris." Enters atelier of Laurent Cars. Marriage. Portraits of his wife. "Au moins soyez discret " and " Comptcz sur mes serments." Agree by the Academy. The " Bal pare" and the "Concert." Series of portraits after Cochin. Ex- pelled from his atelier by the Revolution. Employed by Renouard. Failing powers. Moreau le jeune in same position. Moreau had as a youth accompanied Le Lorrain to St. Petersburg. Moreau in the workshop of Le Bas. Etches plates for others. Marriage with Fran^oise-Nicole Pineau. Work for Prault. "Le Couche de la mariee." Drawing of "La Revue de la Plainc des Sablons." Appointed "dessinateur des Menus." Birth of his daughter. Her life of her father. "Chansons de la Bordc." Illustrations of "La nouvclle Heloise." Other book-illustrations. " Monument du Costume." " Sacre de Louis XVL" Moreau's great opportunity. Drawing and engraving exhibited 1781, together with a great group of other works. "Fetes de la Ville." Received by the Academy on his drawing of "Tullia." Drawing of " Assemblce des Notables" for the King. Loses fortune, gift and style in the Revolution. Decadence began with Italian tour. Sketch-book of 1785. Influence of David. Accepts post of professor at the " Ecolcs Centrales." Louis XVIII. restores him to his old post before his death. All his companions drop into poverty and ncgleft. Few flourish as did Boilly before and after the Revolution. Boilly a painter, but also a draughtsman and lithographer. Work at Hertford House, in the Louvre and in private colleftions. " La queue au lait." He gives not only documents, but work of artistic value. The works of Prieur interesting as documents. Prieur shows steady deteriora- tion under the excitement of the Terror. "Tableaux de la Revolution." Study of Prieur by M. Jean Guift'rey in "L'Art " page 130 CHAPTER X The Engravers in Colour Varieties of method. Deliberations of the Academy. Jean Lutma and Leblond. Francois. Pension from Marigny. Magny, Gilles Demarteau, Bonnet and others. Repro- duftious of Boucher's drawings made by Demarteau. Work after Cochin, Van Loo and Pierre. Works exhibited in 1773. Jean Le Prince. His secret bought by the Academy. His wild life and eccentric habits. Marriage. Travels in Russia. Received on " Bapteme selon le rite Grec." Mariette's criticisms. Diderot. Death of Le Prince. Janinet applies colour on the method of Le Prince. "L'Operateur." Experiments as aeronaut. Account given by Wille of their total failure. Janinet returns to engraving in colour. "Toilette de Venus " after Boucher. Portraits of Marie-Antoinette and Mile. Bertin. Medallions after Fragonard. "Boudoir" subjefts after Lavreince. Claude Hoin. Dull work by Janinet after Moitte. Debucourt masters Janinet's methods. Exhibits at the Salons 1783, 1785. Publishes "LaFeinte Caresse " as a coloured engraving, 1789. The " Menuet de la Mariee." Important gravure-gouache. Debucourt superior to Descourtis. " Promenade de la gallerie du Palais Royal " and other works. Gives his best during the five years which precede the stir of the Revolution. Methods change. Loses mastery over his own secret. Ceases to be the "gravcur qui cree." Invents new "procede." Stipple in colour. Barto- lozzi. Copia and Roger. They successfully reproduce Prud'hon's drawings. Attempt to apply this system to colour destroys Debucourt's art .... . page 149 Xll CHAPTER XI Contents. Engravers and the Academy Insufficient training of engravers. Reaftion in favour of severer discipline. Wille. Inferior position of engravers in the Academy. Insufficient protcftion. Attaciis of printers and publishers. Appeal to Marigny. Rights of reprodudion and publication. Poilly. Gabriel de Saint-Aubin attacks Delaunay. Balcchou. Portrait of Augustus, King of Poland. Did Balcchou pull too many proofs on his own account ? Trial by the Academy. Balechou found guilty. Banished to Avignon. His printer the chief witness against him. Vernct writes to Balcchou. Nattier sends him a portrait. Dies in exile. Grimm on Balcchou and Willc. Fessard and Germain. Cochin and Willc appear as experts. Colleflion of engravings made by the Academy. Valuable property acquired in the plates of diploma works. Gifts from "honorary amateurs." Coypel. Chardin. Wille. Jean- Jacques Caffieri. Illustrated books. Larmessin. Moyreau. Cochin. Bernard Lcpicie. Purchase of plates. Receipts from this source. Inventory of 1775. Commissions given to engravers. Miger. I,empereur. Academy buy all plates left by Flipart. Acquisitions of the Library. Refuse to the last to recognize engravers as the equals of painters and sculptors. Last meeting occupied with concerns of engravers. Academy suppressed page 158 Triumph of revolt against privilege made easy by centralization. Fall of Academics only a detail. Outbreak of 1789 unlocks sources of spiritual life. Vision of new " Har- monia Mundi." Ideals of this moral evolution. Limitations. Tyranny as exadling as the rule it replaces. Prud'hon and David. Note struck by leaders of Romantic movement. Tendencies released. Task of tracing relation to development of modern democracy yet to be accomplished ........... page 169 APPENDIX (A) List of Works by the Comte de Caylus. (B) Note sur la Famille de M. Mariette. (C) Extrafts from the " Partage des Biens de la Succession de Monsieur Mariette." (D) List of Works exhibited at the Salon by: — Beauvarlet, Cars, Cathelin, Cochin fils, Daullc, Debucourt, Delaunay I'aine, Eisen [Works exhibited at the Academy of St. Luke], Flipart, Larmessin, Le Bas, Lempereur, Moreau le jeune, Saint-Aubin (Augustin de), Saint-Aubin (Gabriel de) [Works exhibited at the Academy of St. Luke and at the Colysee], Willc page 171 INDEX page 205 Xlll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS All engraved works are entered under the names of the engravers. With one exception {No. 5) they have been reproduced from examples in the Print Room of the Biblioth^que Nationale. I. 10. II. 12. 13- 14. 15- 16. FACE PAGE Malbeste, Georges ; Lienard, Jean-Baptiste ; Nee, Fran(;ois- Denis. La Revue de la plaine des Sablons. (Moreau le jeune) Heliogravure. Frontispiece Ponce, Nicolas. La Toilette. (Baudouin) Caylus, Comte de. Achetds des Moulins. Mon bel CEillet. (Bou- chardon. "Cris de Paris ") ........ Watelet, Claude-Henri. Portrait of Marguerite Le Comte. (Cochin le fils) ............ Choffard, Pierre-Philippe. Frontispice: " Catalogue Mariette." {Ideni) Basan, Pierre-Francois. Ballet danse au Theatre de I'Opera dans le "Carnaval du Parnasse," Afte I". (Gabriel de Saint-Aubin) Choffard, Pierre-Philippe. Cul de lampe. ("Metamorphoses d'Ovide," 1767-1771) Aveline, Pierre. L'Ouvricre en dentelle : "Diverses charges de la rue de Paris." (Cochin le fils) ....... Cochin le fils, Charles-Nicolas. Vue perspedtive de I'lllumination de la rue de la ferronnerie, execut^e le 29 Aout 1739 par les soins de Messieurs les six corps des marchands a I'occasion du mariage de Madame I"" de France et de I'lnfant Don Philippe IP. Les figures invente et grav6e {sic) par Cochin le Fils, et la Perspective par J. De Seve . Cochin le fils, Charles-Nicolas. Billet de Bal par^ a Versailles pour le mariage de Monseigneur le Dauphin, le 24 fivrier 1745 . Drevet, Pierre-Imbert. Portrait of Bossuet. (Rigaud) Heliogravure Drevet, Pierre-Imbert. Portrait of Adrienne Lecouvreur. (Coypel) Daulle, Jean. Portrait of Cochin le fils ...... Dupuis, Nicolas. Frontispice : " Fables d (Oudry) . Larmessin, Nicolas (Lancret) ........... WiLLE, Jean-Georges. La soeur de la bonne femme de Normandie, dite "La femme a la tulipe." (Wille fils, 1773) XV 'rontispice : DE. Les Remois e la Fontaine," 1755-1759. " Contes de la Fontaine." 1 1 23 31 35 38 41 50 58 62 66 68 72 78 List of TO FACE Illustra- PAGE tions. 17. Cars, Laurent. Le Malade imaginaire: Molicre, "CEuvrcs," 1734. (Boucher) ........... 84 18. Beauvarlet, Jacques-Francois. Madame Dubarry en habit de chasse. (Drouais) ........ Heliogravure 87 19. Flipart, Jean-Jacques. Concours pour le prix de I'expression fond^ dans rAcademie royale de peinture par le Comte de Caylus : Made- moiselle Clairon, assise au-dessus d'une table, sert de modele aux jeunes artistes. (C. N. Cochin le fils) ....... 88 20. Cathelin, Louis-Jacques. Portrait of Le Bas. (C. N. Cochin le fils, 1776; grave 1782) .......... 90 21. Le Bas, Jacques-Philippe. La Marchande de Beignets • • • 93 22. Le Bas, Jacques-Philippe. Les Francma^ons : L'Entr<5e du recipien- daire dans la loge .......... 94 23. Pasquier, Jacques-Jean. Le depart pour Paris. Manon en prison. ("Manon Lescaut," 1753) 97 24. Delaunay, Nicolas. St. Preux mocqu6 par les femmes. (Moreau le jeune. "Nouvelle Hdioise," CEuvres de Rousseau, 1774-1783) Heliogravure 99 Given in the large paper edition only. 25. Baquoy, Jean-Charles. En tete de la "Th^baide." Cul de lampe, "3""' Afte d'Alexandre." (De Seve Racine, 1760) .... loi 26. Choffard, Pierre-Philippe. LeRossignol. ("Contes de la Fontaine," 1762) ......... Heliogravure 103 Given in the large paper edition only. 27. Gaucher, Charles-Etienne. Marie-Leczinska. (Nattier. En tete de la dddicace du Nouvel Abr^g^ Chronologique de I'Histoire de France du President Henault, 1767) ..... Heliogravure 104 28. SiMONET, Jean-Baptiste. Les Graces veng^es. (Moreau le jeune. Querlon, "Les Graces," 1769) . . . . . . . .106 29. Malbeste, Georges. Le Mariage ou la Sortie de I'Op^ra. (Moreau le jeune) ............ 109 30. Ghendt, Emmanuel de. En tete. L'Abeille justifi^e. Cul de lampe. (Marillier, Pierre-Clement. "Fables de Dorat"). Heliogravure 1 10 31. Gravelot, Hubert-Francois. Viola and Olivia. (Hayman. "Twelfth Night": Shakespeare. Oxford, 1744) . . . . . .112 32. Gravelot, Hubert-Francois. Promenade a deux. (Drawing in the collection of M. Jacques Doucet) .... Similigravure 114 33. Le Mire, Noel. Le Misanthrope corrige . . . . . .116 Rousseau, Jean-Francois. Le Connoisseur. (Gravelot. "Contes Moraux": Marmontel) . . . . . . . . . 1 16 34. Gravelot, Hubert-Francois. Conversation with a Romish Priest . 119 35. Le Mire, Noel. La Galerie du Palais, or the Unlucky Glance. (Gra- velot. Corneille, Geneva, 1764) . . . . . . .120 36. Ghendt, Emmanuel de. Les Vendanges ou I'Automne. (Eisen.) Preparation en eau-forte ...... Heliogravure 123 37. EiSEN, Charles-Dominique-Joseph. Les trois Comm^res. (Drawing in the coUedlion of Baroness James de Rothschild) . . . .124 Lempereur. Les trois Commeres. (Eisen. " Contes de la Fontaine ") 124 38. Saint-Aubin, Germain de. Le Bain : " Papillonneries humaines " . 130 39. Saint-Aubin, Gabriel de. Reunion dans un pare. (Etching. Cabinet des Estampes) . . . . . . . . . . .132 40. Saint-Aubin, Gabriel de. Stance de physique a la Monnoie. (Drawing in the colledtion of M. Jacques Doucet) . . . Similigravure 134 xvi TO FACE List of PAGE Illustra- 41. Saint-Aubin, Augustin de. Dernicre heure de Madame de Rebecquc. tions. Heliogravure 137 42. MoREAU, Jean-Michel. Little girl asleep. (Drawing in the colleftion of Mr. Heseltine) ....... Heliogravure 139 43. Le Mire, NoEl. Le Retour de Claire. ("Nouvelle H6!oise," CEuvres de Rousseau, 1 774-1 783. Moreau le jeune) ..... 140 44. Moreau, Jean-Michel. Leaves from a Sketch-Book (Musie du Louvre) Heliogravure 143 45. BoiLLY, Louis-Leopold. La Queue au Lait. (Drawing in the colleftion of Madame Aboucaya) ...... Heliogravure 147 46. Prieur, Jean-Louis. La Fete de la FL'd(5ration. (Mus6e du Louvre.) This drawing shows the Triumphal Arch eredted in honour of the occasion ......... Heliogravure 148 47. Ollivier, Michel-Barthelemy. Study of a woman sitting on the ground ......... Similigravure 153 48. Lavreince, Nicolas. La Marchande de modes. (Gouache in the col- lection of M. Beurdeley) ...... Heliogravure 1 54 49. Debucourt, Louis-Philibert. Le menuet de la marine Heliogravure 156 50. Lepicie, Bernard. La petite fille au volant. (Chardin) . . . 165 xvu LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS G. B. A. A. de I'A. fr. N. A. P. V. WiUe M6m. Basan, D'\6\. Cochin, Mem. iiii-d. A. B. C. Dario Not. hist. Portalis and Beraldi Portalis, " Les Dessinateurs " French Painters, etc. French Architedts and Sculptors, etc, French Decoration, etc. B. M. Chal. du [.ouvre A. R. Engd. Ex. It. = Gazette des Beaux Arts. = Archives de I'Art fran^ais. = Nouvelles Archives de I'Art fran^ais. = Proces-verbaux de I'Academie Royaie. = Memoires et Journal de Jean-Georges Wille. = Basan, Dictionnaire des Graveurs. = Memoires inedits de Charles-Nicolas Cochin. = Abecedario de P. -J. JVIariette. = Notice Historique. = Portalis et Beraldi, " Les Graveurs du XV III Sicclc." = Portalis, "Les Dessinateurs d'lllustrations au XVII] Siecle." = French Painters of the XVIIIth Century. = French Architefts and Sculptors of the XVIII Century. = French Decoration and Furniture in the XVIII Century. = Print Room, British Museum. = Chalcographie du Louvre. = Agre^. = Re^u. = Engraved. = Exhibited. = livres tournois. XIX La Toilette. (Nicolas Ponce, after Bauuouin.) FRENCH ENGRAVERS AND DRAUGHTSMEN OF THE XVIII CENTURY CHAPTER I THE COMTE DE CAYLUS AND THE GREAT "AMATEURS" IT is even more difficult to give a systematic account of French engravers and draughtsmen in the eighteenth century than to write of the painters, the architects, the sculptors and the decorators. To treat of them chronologically or to break up their work into sedlions according to the subjed: would be to give this volume the charafter of a text-book — useful, perhaps, but unreadable. I have therefore again attempted to seledl the man in each division who has impressed me as a typical personality, and to group round him others who appear less marked in character or who present features which may be emphasized by way of contrast. The notice of the Comte de Caylus with which this volume opens has been reserved till now because, though he exercised during the early part of the century an extraordinary influence over every branch of art, his own pradiice connects him specially with engraving. His close alliance with Mariette carries us naturally to the consideration of that famous printseller, colledlor and publisher, who, if he engraved little, bought and sold a great deal. In conjunction with de Caylus, Mariette exercised an authority with which, as long as they lived, every dealer, draughts- man and engraver had to reckon. In this connedtion Basan — whom Mariette appointed to deal with his colledtions — cannot be overlooked. These men form the background for the aftivity of I B The Comte de Caylus and the great "Ama- teurs." others, but their influence was contested even during their lives by the growing power of Cochin fils, who, backed by Marigny, exercised a vigorous direftion in his name. When we come to the engravers and draughtsmen proper the first thing that strikes us is their marvellous power of drawing — due to the severe studies of which they possessed the wholesome tradition. The Drevet — those great engravers of portrait — were the direft heirs of Nanteuil, and to them Daulle, Beauvarlet, Wille and their pupils were deeply indebted. If we turn to those men, who devoted themselves to pieces historiques, the name of Laurent Cars stands first, and his chara6ter and connection with business may be contrasted with the charafter and business of his younger rival Le Bas, out of whose workshop went nearly all the vignettistes and engravers of the " estampe galante " to whom I have devoted the following chapter. Gravelot and Eisen, amongst the draughtsmen, precede the Saint-Aubin, Moreau le jeune, Boilly and those other designers whose work lent itself specially to the pretty art of engraving in colour, which is essentially of the later days of the century ; and for the concluding pages I have kept a short account of the relations of engravers to the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, with the suppression of which and the proclamation of the " Commune des Arts " this work ends. It was the fashion to engrave in the eighteenth century. Cochin's famous pupil, Madame de Pompadour, was by no means original in her efforts to practise the art. Everybody of distinction knew something of the use of the needle or the graver, and lengthy would be even a list of amateurs, some of whom — like de Thiers or the Chevalier de Valory — left a considerable group of work. If we pick out only the most noted names, the Marquis d'Argenson may stand first in point of time with his " Vue du Chateau des Bergeries." Then come the Dukes of Chevreuse, of Charost and of Chaulnes ; the Princess de Conde ; the Marquise de Belloy ; the Marquis de Coigny ; the Marquis d'Harcourt ; the Count de Breteuil, the Count de Clermont and the Count d'Eu. Others as widely different in type as Bachaumont, the writer of those " Me- moires Secrets " which are the most excellent chronicle of their day, and Bertinazzi dit Carlin, the famous aCtor, shared the enthu- siasm of the Court, to which Philippe Egalite himself paid tribute when, as Duke de Chartres, he engraved in 1761 two little subjects after Carmontelle.^ ' "Paysanne de St.-Cloud " and "Manoeuvre de St. -Cloud." 2 For the most part these courtly artists left little behind them. The They contented themselves, after the fishion of Campion,^ the Comte de gallant controleur general^ with a dozen or so examples of a skill and the by which they paid homage to the divinity of the moment : — great a Mme. de Cypierre, " Vues des bords de la Loire " ; a Mme. de t'gu^/" Guillonville, " Vues des bords du Loiret"; a Mme. la marquise de Pilles, " Vue de Meung." Others employed their art with so much indiscretion that it might be said of them, as of Vivant Denon,^ one of the most distinguished of this group of amateur engravers, that their chief occupation was " la gravure et les femmes." He, indeed, seems to have owed much of his success and even his great position at the beginning of the nineteenth century to this means of popularity with women. They were all delighted to sit to him. The list, which begins with Madame Vigee Lebrun and includes Lady Hamilton, is a long one, and his charm is said to have been sufficient to soften even the bitterness of captivity to the outraged Pius VH. Painters have always, like Coypel,^ Rivalz, "M. le chevalier d'Origny,"^ Pierre and others, engraved or etched their own work as a matter of course. Throughout the eighteenth century the etching needle was never out of their hands, though few, if we except Watteau, Oudry perhaps, and Fragonard, ever attained to a high degree of skill or showed any originality of method. The student days in Italy generally saw the birth of these attempts. There it was, as we may remember, that Fragonard engraved and re-engraved subjefts after Tiepolo, " son maitre de gravure " ; there, too, he rendered with deep personal feeling and spirit that forgotten corner of the neglefted garden of some patrician villa, which is known to collectors as " Le Pare." In Italy, also, Fra- ' 1734-1784. * 1747-1825. He was Diredlor of the Imperial Galleries during the reign of the first Napoleon, and had an enormous influence on the movement of the arts. In 1 81 5, after having resisted obstinately the removal of the spoils amassed in the Louvre, he resigned his post. "Toutes les fois," we are told, "qu'un enlevement devait avoir lieu, il ^tait pris au collet et gard6 a vue dans son cabinet par un peloton de soldats prussiens " (Clement de Ris, " Les Amateurs d'autrefois," p. 437). ^ Charles Coypel, the designer of the famous illustrations of " Les Aventures de Don Quichotte" ("French Painters, etc.," p. 28, and "French Decoration, etc.," p. 103), is the author — amongst other pieces of a like charadter — of " L'Histoire d'une Devote," which consists of four satirical subjedls : i. "La Devote va a la messe"; 2. " Elle s'ofFre en holocauste " ; 3. " EUe querelle sa servante " ; 4. " EUe calomnie son prochain." One may also note an amusing " Assembl6e de brocanteurs " with asses' heads examining works of painting and sculpture, and a " lady making her will in the presence of her lover, her lawyer and her cat " — the cat evidently is to be the universal legatee. ' See Salons of 1739 to 1743. 3 Ama- teurs. The gonard etched his four " Bacchanales" or "Jeux de Satyrs" (1763), Comte de jj^g handling of which — like his brilliant work of a different and "he charadler and later date, " L'Armoire " — shows an intuitive per- great ception of the resources of the process employed and qualities which are not revealed by many of the easel pictures which now, in some cases, enjoy an exaggerated reputation. Many of Fra- gonard's etchings have all the charm of his drawings or of his best decorative work, whereas his achievements as a painter are of an amazing inequality, and differ in value to a quite exceptional degree. Amongst amateurs, the learned, self-consequent nephew of Madame de Maintenon, the Comte de Caylus^ — whose authority and influence form one of the most remarkable features of the day — stands in the front rank. The importance of his position, the very nature of his faults and failings, his vast pretensions, real merit and indifferent accomplishment combine to make him an admirable representative of the wealthy amateur in the earlier half of the century, just as we find in Watelet and Saint-Non the finished pattern of the inferior types fashionable at a later date. The exaggerated seriousness with which Caylus took himself might be expefted of a man who had sat on the knees of the Great King,^ but we may recolledt that his sense of his own dignity and importance was no hindrance to those touching relations with Watteau which are the consecration of de Caylus's life. " It is well to remember," says Cochin, " in resped: of the petty despotism which M. de Caylus sought to exercise over the arts, that he had become accustomed to it little by little, which is as it were his apology. Perhaps, indeed, in the beginning of his relations with artists he had no such scheme." ^ His friendship with Watteau was certainly untainted by any of that ambition to play the patron by which he was devoured in later years. No estimate of his charafter will be just that omits to reckon with his real love of and devotion to the arts, or to take into account that he most certainly knew more about them than any other amateur of his day. When he died, the loss of " ce connoisseur profond " ' 1 692-1 765. Anne-Claude- Philippe de Thubieres, de Grimoard, de Pestels, de Levi, Comte de Caylus, was the son of Marguerite de Villette, great-niece of Mme. de Maintenon and stepdaughter of that Marquise de Villette who married Boling- brolce after the death of her first husband. '" "N'^tant encore que mousquetaire, il se distingua a la bataille de Malplaquet, de fa^on qu'au retour de la campagne, le roi, par amiti6 pour Mad"* de Maintenon, le prit sur ses genoux, en disant: ' Voyez mon petit Caylus; il a d^ja tu6 un de mes ennemis ' " (A. B. C. Dario, Mariette). ^ Cochin, M^m. indd., p. 64. 4 was sincerely regretted by the Academicians, in spite of their The personal and painful experience that, as Cochin puts it, " men ^omte de of quality, though doubtless conferring honour on the body to and the which they attach themselves, unfortunately know it too well, great and it is rare that their proteftion does not degenerate into some- tgurs/' thing like tyranny." ^ The pretensions of de Caylus to be an universal expert were at least backed by persistent study and some pra6tical knowledge of more than one branch of art. He was not only a draughtsman and etcher of no mean excellence, but all that experience which may be won by the constant direftion of the attention and steady train- ing of the powers of perception was undoubtedly his. He started for Italy on the death of the old King, from whose favour he had much to expe(5l : " huit mois apres," we are told, " il saisit I'occasion de passer dans le Levant. II partit avec M. de Bonac, qui alloit relever M. Desalleurs a la Porte Ottomane." ^ Thence- forth, de Caylus gave up his whole existence to the serious study of those subjects in which he honestly delighted. Rich and well- placed, he abandoned the dignities of the Court ^ and the pleasures of his class in order to devote himself to literature,* to archaeology, to every branch of art. When he finally returned to Paris after a prolonged exploration of Asia Minor, he settled with his mother in a house surrounded by the gardens of the Petit Luxembourg, and at once began to reproduce the treasures of Crozat's famous collections with his indefatigable needle. In a most touching letter, written on the occasion of his mother's death to the abbe de Conti, de Caylus lets us see how beautiful his life with her at this date had been. "Je ne S9ais plus vivre . . .," he writes; " a tout ce que le commerce leplus aimable peut avoir de plus seduisant, a toute la volupte de la paresse qu'il entrainoit a sa suite, il a succede une solitude afireuse."^ Rallying his strength, de Caylus devoted all his powers to the task which he had set himself, when the riches of de Crozat's portfolios were re- vealed to him, with that deliberate persistence which sustained him throughout his life. ' Cochin, M6m. in^d., p. 25. ' Le Beau, " Eloge de Caylus." An account of this journey, of interest to all who concern themselves with classical archaeology, was given by M. Miintz from an unpublished MS. at a sitting of the Acad, des Inscriptions, April 6th, 1900. ^ He lived at first, after leaving the Petit Luxembourg, in a small building on the terrace near the Tuileries. When the growth of his colledtions forced him to seek larger quarters, he built an hotel in the rue Saint-Dominique. ' See Appendix A for list of his works. " Letter of June 17th, 1729 (de Goncourt, "Portraits intimes," t. ii., p. 22). 5 The The restless energy which never allowed him to remain idle Comte de [qj- ^ rnoment, and which found a certain vent in the voluminous and the writings, published and unpublished,^ which were the excuse for great his ele6lion to the Academy, could not long be diverted from its main "■^"^^r channel. He returned always to his favourite occupation with renewed zest and vivacity. After he had surprised Europe by his reproductions of the treasures of Crozat's admirable collections, de Caylus set himself to etch those in the Royal Cabinet, his access to which was facilitated by the appointment of his intimate friend, Charles Coypel, as gar^ie des dessins du roi? In 1747 Coypel, whose nomination as First Painter and Director of the Royal Academy had been supported by de Caylus, in his capacity of " conseiller et honoraire amateur," against the party which would have recalled de Troy from Rome,^ presented to the Society two hundred and twenty-three proofs of etchings made by de Caylus from the drawings under his care.^ This set, considerable though it seems, includes but a small portion of his accomplishment, for the famous " Recueil " of his complete engraved work, now in the Cabinet des Estampes, fills four folio volumes,^ every example in this unique colledtion having its counter proof facing it. The early efforts here repre- sented, the little figures etched after Watteau, " Un Nouvelliste," " Le beau Cleon," etc.,^ are amongst the most pleasing. The slight but not unintelligent point with which they are indicated has an attraction denied to the more ambitious facsimiles of drawings and reproductions of set and solid work. An exception must, however, be made as regards later work, in favour of the brilliant and workmanlike renderings of Bouchar- don's drawings of the " Cris de Paris," It is true that we find in ' The " Catalogue des Manuscrits provenant de Caylus," and now in the "Biblio- theque de I'Universit^," is printed in the Appendix to the " M^moires de Cochin " (p. 151 et siq.). This represents but only one side of the writer's adtivity, which, as it contains numbers of comedies and society verses, probably belongs to the class of work referred to by Mariette when he says that de Caylus " dans sa jeunesse avoit beaucoup 6crit, mais pourtant des bagatelles" (A. B. C. Dario). ' Coypel was also "garde des planches gravies et des estampes." He was named in succession to Claude de Chancey, " prieur de la Sainte Madeleine," who had robbed the collections and only left the Bastille for the Petites Maisons. See Delaborde, " D^partement des Estampes," pp. 61, 62. ^ See " French Painters, etc.," p. 40. * P. v.. May 27th, 1747. See also August ist, 1750, and January loth and November 27th, 1756, for other gifts, and Catalogue of the Chalcographie du Louvre, Nos. 100 to 322. ' The set (also in four volumes) sold at the death of Mariette consisted of 3,200 pieces. ' "Suites de figures inventees par Watteau et gravies par son ami C " 6 z o X o C z X U this " Recueil " reprodudlions of drawings by Michel Ange, by The Raphael, by Rubens, by Rembrandt and Van Dyck, rendered with Comte de absolutely faithful intention ; it is true that we rise from turning and the over its pages with an enlarged conception of the services rendered great by de Caylus, not to archeology only but to art, yet it is impossible teu^_^" not to see that he interprets the work of his contemporaries with a superior liberty and ease. Gillot and Coypel are more within his grasp than the landscapes of Titian, nor are there many among the more studied examples from his hand which can rival the " Colleur d'Affiches " or the " Porteur d'Eau " of the " Cris de Paris." This "Recueil" was but one of the important gifts actually transferred to the Cabinet des Estampes by de Caylus during his lifetime. Beside many single examples he handed over various " Colleftions," each in its way unique. Amongst these was a series of drawings from objects in his possession which he had caused to be executed for reprodudlion in his own works, ^ as well as the " Peintures antiques trouvees a Rome," copied by Pietro Santi Bartoli in gouache for Queen Christina of Sweden.^ Of all these gifts the Print Room was, however, temporarily deprived on an appeal made by his heir, the Duke de Caylus, to the King. De Caylus himself had never married, but he inherited at the age of sixty-eight, from an uncle who had taken service with Spain, an income of 60,000 It., "la grandesse espagnole et son titre de due reversible a perpetuite sur les heritiers du nom et des armes de Caylus." ^ The title, which he never assumed, went by patent to his nearest relative, the Marquis de Lignerac. He demanded and obtained from Louis XV., " la jouissance, sa vie durant, des choses rares qui composaient le cabinet de feu son oncle." Books and portfolios, therefore, as well as the treasures bequeathed to the Cabinet des Medailles, returned to their old quarters, where they remained till the death of the Duke permitted the Print Room the free exercise of its rights. ' Amongst these may be mentioned the volumes in which were reproduced and described his own colledlions, " Recueil d'Antiquitcs egyptiennes, ctrusques, grecques, romaines et gauloises " (1752-1767, Paris, Dessaint et Vaillant, then Tilliard), the seventh volume of which was published after the death of de Caylus ; " Recueil de peintures antiques " ; " Nouveaux sujets de peinture et de sculpture," etc. See Appendix A. ■ See Delaborde, " Le Departement des Estampes," p. 90 and note 2. Before presenting the original drawings of Bartoli to the Cabinet du roi, Caylus had them engraved and coloured at great cost. Thirty copies were, Le Beau tells us, given to the public ; that in the Catalogue of Marietta, and which is described by Basan in the Catalogue of Mariette's sale, is now in the Bibliothiique Nationale. ^ " Les Amateurs d'autrefois," pp. 279, 280. The Whoever wrote or spoke of de Caylus in his own day, if of a Comte de friendly turn, invariably attached to his name the solemn epithet and "he " profond." To the Academy he is a " profond connoisseur." great Gaburri,^ the friend and correspondent of Mariette, writes of the '' Ama- " profonde intelligence de M. le Comte de Caylus." Yet " pro- fond " de Caylus was not, nor had he any trace of that sense of exad: science in which others were then equally lacking. The text and illustration of his " Recueil des Antiquites"^ are both open to criticism. The one is full of errors ; the other, especially where works of sculpture are concerned, shows — whether we recognize the hand of Bouchardon or of Caylus — a pure travesty of classic style. All the same our debt to Caylus remains immense. We can- not be too grateful to the man who devoted his fortune to bring together these vast colledlions, who gave his time, his labour, his intelligence to the scrupulous exactitude of their description, and who did so much in this and in every other direction to raise the level of taste in his day. At the Academy he was a frequent lecturer, and when, as a consequence of a discourse on " Testes d'expres- sion," a petition was got up by the students, funds were found by him for the maintenance of a class which has been immortalized by Cochin's drawing,^ and the prize for a duller subjedt — " I'Osteo- logie " — was also instituted through his initiative.* His own work shows that his taste was not always sure, and that he could dwell as fondly on a drawing by one of the Caracci as on the work of Lionardo. He could prefer Vasse^ to Pigalle, in which he was certainly wrong, and we may be sure that Cochin says no more than the truth when he avers that Caylus, if he had given a hasty judgement, was loth to retract or modify it — a most usual weakness with critics. But when we have made all deduc- tions, there remains a remarkable man, one whose chara6ter and life had unity and dignity, one who deserves something more than to be remembered only as the friend of Watteau, the lover of Mademoiselle Quinault-Dufresne ^ and Madame GeofFrin, the ' His colleftion of engravings and drawings was sold in London, after his death, in 1742. "Ella ny a pas eu beaucoup de faveur, chose assez singuliere, car tout ce qui vient d'ltalie est repute bon pour les Anglois" (Mariette, A. B. C. Dario). ' See p. 7, note i. ' See the reproduaion in " L'Art du XVIII. Siecle," ed. 1882, t. ii., p. 51. * P. v., Oftober 6th and 27th, 1759; February, i 760 ; April 28th, 1764. ' See " French ArchiteiSts, etc.," pp. 39 note, 75, 109 and note, 147 note, etc. " Jeanne-Fran^oise, the younger sister of Ouinault-Dufresne, a brilliant adlress and witty woman, often consulted by Voltaire on his plays. She made her debut at the Comedie Fran^aise in 17 18. This, it has been suggested, preceded by two years the date of her relations to de Caylus. 8 etcher of " Les Petits Pieds," that supplementary illustration to the The romance of Longus without which colled:ors hold that no copy of Comte de " Daphnis et Chloe " can be complete. and the The references made to de Caylus in Cochin's Memoirs are by great no means friendly ; they lay bare all the flaws of a nature prone both t'e^j^^^-" by birth and inclination to the exercise of authority, but show at the same time that de Caylus was one to whom, as Cochin himself says, much must be forgiven because he really loved much. The venomous attack made by Marmontel on the man by whose good- will he had probably been admitted to Madame GeofFrin's table conveys the impression that de Caylus had been justly displeased by the bumptious and underbred familiarity of the author of those mawkish " Contes Moraux " which owe their only value to Gra- velot's brilliant illustrations. The quarrel with the Encyclopedists, which began with their intentional exclusion of de Caylus from their list of authorities,^ embittered the last years of his life and had no doubt contributed to develop hostile relations between himself and Marmontel. Neither side could tolerate the pretensions of the other and de Caylus dealt with Diderot as insolently and more frankly than Diderot dealt with him. "Je connais peu Diderot," he wrote to Pacciaudi in 1761, " parce que je ne I'estime point; mais je crois qu'il se porte bien. II y a de certains b qui ne meurent pas tandis que pour le malheur des lettres de I'Europe d'honnetes gens . . . meurent dans leur plus grande force." 2 Cochin even attributes a certain coolness which crept between de Caylus and Watelet to the fadl that Watelet undertook to write those articles " on the arts " for the Encyclopaedia which had not been offered to himself. " II est aimable," writes de Caylus, " mais son genre d'esprit et sa societe ne vont pas avec la fafon dont je pense sur certaines choses," and in these words we have probably an exadl and even kindly statement of the situation. Watelet belonged to the new generation, de Caylus represented the old. The indefatigable activity and high ambitions displayed by de ' Cochin, M^m. indd., pp. 42, 43. ' " Correspondance inWite du Comte de Caylus avec le Pere Pacciaudi, Th6atin. (1754-1765), " t. i., p. 237, ed. Nisard, 1877. Pacciaudi was librarian to the Dulce of Parma. Diderot's resentment may be measured by the satisfadtion with which he congratulates himself and others, in the Salon of 1765, on having been delivered by death from the " plus cruel des amateurs." Yet his debt to de Caylus, whose teaching had cleared the way for his own, was large. See E. Miintz, " Un pr^curseur et un ennemi de Diderot " (Rev. Bleue, 29 Mai, 1897). Q C The Caylus both as an archaeologist and engraver were seconded, it is Comte de true, by " plus de zele que de talent," but they sustained him and tife throughout the agony of his mortal illness ^ — as they had throughout great his life — and gave to his figure a consistent dignity and consequence '' ^™^,' of w^hich there is no example amongst the many " gens du monde " who followed in his footsteps. Claude-Henri Watelet,^ born to great wealth,^ employed his riches to make his colledtions perfed: and to lead an easy life with a picked circle of friends. " He likes," says Mariette, " to paint, to draw, to engrave, and to all these talents he adds another and superior, that of versifying and writing elegantly in French." ^ His early journeys with Leroi de Saint-Agnan in Germany and Italy, his long stay in Vienna, and still longer stay at Rome, where he remained as a sort of amateur student of the Ecole de France, encouraged the development of tastes and friendships which became a part of his life. On his return, Watelet was naturally regarded by de Caylus as a promising disciple. These expeftations were heightened by the successive publication of various sets of " Vases " engraved by Watelet, after drawings by Pierre, or by Pierre and Vien, one of which was dedicated to Madame GeofFrin.^ Watelet had, however, no intention of sacrificing any of the advantages and pleasures that exceptional fortune and position could secure. He was pleased to busy himself with music, or painting, or engraving; but he lived for the world, in the Salons of Madame Geoffrin and Madame Tencin, in the pleasant company of the reigning favourite, for whom he engraved Cochin's portrait of her young brother, Abel Poisson, the future Marquis de Marigny, or the even more agreeable society of Madame Le Comte, whose ' Le Beau says: "II supporta avec le plus grand courage des operations douloureuses. . . . Des que la plaie fut fermee, il se rendit avec empressement a nos occupations. II n'avoit point interrompu ses etudes ; il reprit son train ordinaire ; il visita ses amis, les savants, les artistes, dont il alloit animer les travaux, tandis qu'il mouroit lui-nieme. Porte entre les bras de ses domestiques, il sembloit laisser a chaque lieu une portion de sa vie. Combien de fois ne I'avons-nous pas vu en cet etat assister a nos stances et se ranimer a nos leftures." ' 1718-1786. Honoraire associ^ libre, 1747. ^ He succeeded his father, who was " receveur general des finances " for the " generalite d'Orleans," at the age of twenty-two. ^ Mariette, A. B. C. Dario. His chief performance was " L'Art de Peindre," but he also published one or two tragedies and comedies, an " Essai sur les jardins," and the first two volumes of a " Didtionnaire des beaux arts," which was re-edited with additions in 1792 by L^vesque. ^ " Raccolta di Vasi intagliate dal suo amico Watelet," 1749. A similar set is dedicated to " la Signora illustrissima Duronceray nel arte del' intagliatura dilettante virtuosissima " — a thoroughly unmerited eulogium. 10 H. rrhlclrl Jclin £/. Xrfi}tper«m- ,rcal ■ Portrait of Margueritk Le Comte. (Claudk-Hknri Watelet, after Cochin le kil>. ) portrait in profile, also after Cochin, was engraved by him in The j-yr^ ^ Comte de . * . Cavlus In 1754 Watelet, who had been received as an associe libre by and the the Royal Academy in 1747,^ signs a "Suite de dessins peints et great graves par Watelet du cabinet de Madame Le C . . ." This initial tgu^^.' indicates the lady of whom he has left us this engaging portrait, and whose relations with Watelet and the fashion after which they were accepted by the world are as incredible as anything recounted concerning Voltaire and the divine " Emilie." George Sand, in her " Lettres d'un Voyageur," draws a senti- mental picture of Watelet, " an etcher superior to any of his day," and Marguerite Le Comte as two poor old people etching together, and thus consoling themselves for the narrow poverty of their lives by their common love for art.^ It is true, indeed, that Watelet not long before his death was embarrassed by the flight of a dis- honest subordinate, ,vho carried off considerable sums due to the State, the payment of which, exafted stridtly and promptly by the abbe Terray, straitened the resources of the unfortunate receveur general; but in 1754, thirty years earlier, when he is supposed to have found in the wife of the procureur, M. Le Comte, the woman to whom by a rare conformity of tastes and pleasures he became indissolubly attached, the source of Watelet's wealth was untouched, nor can the fortune of M. Le Comte and his wife be regarded as inconsiderable. Le Moulin-Joli, a beautiful property near Argen- teuil, was actually bought by Watelet as a retreat for himself and Marguerite Le Comte, in which they might enjoy each other's society in the company of trusted friends, and he certainly lavished great sums on making it a perfect maison de platsance. Watelet's social successes were crowned by his election to the Academy, and the journey to Italy which he undertook with Madame Le Comte in 1763 was a sort of triumphal procession. The couple — chaperoned by Watelet's complaisant old tutor, the abbe Coppette, and carrying in their train Savalette de Buchelay and the Swiss landscape-painter and engraver Weirotter * — were ' A second portrait of the same lady, in full face — an example of which is cited by Portalis and B6raldi as in the colleilion of Baron Pichon — was also engraved by Watelet. " P. v., September 30th, 1747. ^ " II y avait un bon artiste qu'on appelait Watelet, qui gravait a I'eau-forte mieux qu'aucun homme de son temps. II aima Marguerite Le Comte et lui apprit a graver a I'eau-forte aussi bien que lui. Elle quitta son mari, ses biens et son pays pour aller vivre avec Watelet. Ouarante ans apres on d^couvrit aux environs de Paris, dans une maison appel^e Moulin-Joli, un vieux homme," etc. (" Lettres d'un Voyageur," ed. 1869, p. 142). * 1730-1771. Mariette says of Weirotter: "Nous I'avons vu a Paris, et s'y I I The everywhere magnificently received and entertained. At Turin Comte de (-hey were welcomed by His Majesty of Sardinia ; at Rome the and the Pope and the ambassador of France combined with Natoire and great the eleves of the Ecole de France to do them honour.^ In a letter, ''Ama- written it has been supposed to M. Le Comte, from Rome,^ Watelet, after giving direftions as to the arrangement of their rooms at the Moulin, adds : " Nous nous portons au reste a mer- veille. Mme. Le Comte est toujours comblee de politesses, de prevenances et d'attentions sur tout et en toute occasion. Elle auroit ete logee sur la route de Naples dans tous les palais qui sont sur ce chemin et refeue dans cette ville par ce qu'il y a de plus grand. II y a ici un cardinal Albane qui I'a prise dans la plus sin- guliere amitie ainsi que la princesse Borghese," Nowhere, indeed, do we find any hint of the sacrifices generously suggested by George Sand as having been made for her lover's sake by Marguerite Le Comte.'^ There is, however, an even more suggestive pifture of this curious society in later years, by Mme. Vigee Lebrun, who was herself one of the privileged guests of" Le Moulin-Joli." In her amusing " Memoirs " she writes of" that elysee which belonged to a man of my acquaintance, M. Watelet, a great lover of art, a dis- tinguished man of a sweet and attaching chara6ler who had made many friends. In his enchanted isle, I found him in keeping with all his surroundings : he received there with grace and simplicity a small but perfeftly well-chosen set. A friend, to whom he had been attached for thirty years, lived in his house. Time had sandlified, so to say, their tie, to such a point that they were every- where received in the best company, as well as the lady's husband, who, drolly enough, never left her." ^ The abode of this curious household, " La maison de Mar- guerite Le Comte, meuniere du Moulin-Joli," is the subjedt of one distinguer par des desseins de paysage faits d'aprds nature, ou il mettoit beaucoup de gout et peut-^tre trop de maniere. Etant dans cette ville, il en a grav6 plusieurs qui m6ritent d'etre estim^s. II 6toit un esprit inquiet et qui ne pouvoit demeurer en place. 11 suivit M. Watelet en Italic" (A. B. C. Dario). ' They published a little book entitled " Nella venuta in Roma di madama Le Comte e dei Signori Watelet e Copette, componimenti poetici di Luigi Subleyras colle figure in rame di Stefano della Vall^e-Poussin, 1764." The cuts, which show Watelet arriving with his sketch-book under one arm and his lady on the other, are excellent comedy. ° This letter is quoted by MM. de Portalis and B^raldi, t. iii., pp. 643-645. From its style it is more probable that it was written by Watelet to his caissier, Roland, than to M. Le Comte. See Wille, M^m., Sept. 3rd, 1767. ' See note 3, p. 11. * "Souvenirs de Madame Vigde-Lebrun," ed. 1835, t. i., pp. 151, 152. 12 of Watelet's happiest attempts, and here he produced by far the The greater part of the three hundred etchings which bear his name.^ p°"?^^ ^^ Unfortunately one can only say, even of the best, that they show and the the good intentions of the intelligent amateur, and in that respe6t great are about on a level with the literary efforts which, culminating in ^'gu^^' his versified and illustrated " Art de Peindre," opened to him the doors of the Academy.^ " M. Watelet," wrote Colle, " receveur general des finances, est un amateur des arts, mais qui, dans aucun n'a montre ni un genie ni un talent decide. II sait peindre, il salt graver, il a fait des vers, mais tout cela dans un degre si mediocre que le moindre des artistes est infiniment au-dessus de lui." The criticism is, indeed, painfully true not only of Watelet but of all that busy crowd of gens du monde who were pleased to have a talent for the arts. On one of my first visits to Chantilly, the Duke d'Aumale sent me off with M. Gruyer to look over the drawings of one of the most widely celebrated — Carmontelle.^ The opportunities which Louis Carrogis dit de Carmontelle enjoyed as Reader to the Duke de Chartres, and which he cultivated by means of his excellent address and social talents, were employed by him to make that extra- ordinary colleftion of curious, full-length sketches of his con- temporaries in which, as Grimm observed, he has seized the air, the bearing, the essence as it were of each person rather than their adtual features. The interest which his drawings excite is in- dependent of any artistic value; it is simply that of a chronicle of things and people out of sight.* This is the sole merit which accrues to him in connexion with the famous engravings by Delafosse, one of which represents " La Malheureuse Famille ' Portalis and B^raldi say "son oeuvre grav6 d^passe 300 pieces," t. iii., p. 648. His work is by no means remarkable, but it had a great social success. Wille writes, March 29th, 1766: "J'ay chargd M. Huber d'obtenir de M. Wattelet son oeuvre pour le Cabinet dle6loral." ' This poem, which was published by Guerin and Delatour in 1760, was orna- mented by Pierre with vignettes. It excited the ire of Diderot. " If it were mine," he wrote, "I would cut out all the vignettes, frame and glaze them, and throw the rest into the fire." The vignettes are not much better than the text. ' 171 7-1806. He was the son of a shoemaker named Carrogis, whose shop was at the corner of the rue des Quatre- Vents. It is supposed that he took his second name in order not too constantly to recall that of the shop. See the notice by Mme. de Genlis to " Proverbes et Comedies Posthumes de Carmontelle." * He kept all his drawings, and the colledlion now at Chantilly is supposed to include the 520 portraits from his hand, sold in 1831, at the sale of La M6sangere, to an English purchaser. One drawing, that of the Calas family, is historic. Grimm tried in vain to induce Wille to engrave it, and it was handed to Delafosse. See Wille, M6m., April 20th, 1763. 13 The Calas,"^ whilst In the other deeply interesting if less sensational Comte de work we see the seven-year-old Mozart at the spinet, accompany- and\"he i"g ^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^'■^^^^ Marianne whilst their father plays the violin, great Both these works had sketches by Carmontelle for their basis. "Ama- -YYie few portraits which he etched himself show that their author might easily have rivalled Watelet, and that is all. The only amateur whose execution rises above this level is Antoine de Marcenay de Ghuy,^ and he is an exception proving the rule, for though always reckoned as an amateur, he appears to have no title to this indulgence except good birth. He regularly sold his work in order to eke out his income,^ and his abortive attempt, with the help of Wille, who had already solicited for him the " patent " of the Imperial Academy of Augsburg, to get himself received as an associate by the Royal Academy indicates an essentially professional ambition. " J'ay fait mes visites," writes Wille, on July 20th, 1761, "aux officiers et membres de I'Academie royale ayant voix, pour les prier de m'accorder leurs suffrages lorsque je presenterai le portrait de M. le marquis de Marigny, que j'ay grave pour ma reception. Ces prieressont d'usage. M. de Marcenay m'accompagna et fit ces visites avec moi et prieres pour des suffrages aux memes personnes ; car il desire etre agree le jour que j'espere etre re9u, qui sera vendredy prochain 24 de ce mois." Unfortunately, when the day came, Wille has to enter together with his own unanimous reception the dis- comfiture of his friend, who " n'ayant pas le nombre de voix pour lui qu'il lui auroit fallu, fut refuse." As the justification of his pretensions, de Marcenay submitted to the Academy " quatre tableaux " — probably those which he hastened to exhibit with the waif res in 1762 — but it is probable that had he even been able to show the best of his etched work, the portraits of Marshals Saxe and Turenne, or the medallions of Stanislas Leckzinski, the result would not have been different.^ These were, however, all executed after his rejeftion by the Academy, and show that' de Marcenay, in his least pretentious things, does best. As a rule, in large work he gets thick and heavy when trying for force, and " woolly " when he wants an ' This work is shown hanging in the alcove of Voltaire's bedroom, in Denon's " Dejeuner de Ferney." " 1724-1811. ^ See Louis Morand, "Antoine de Marcenay de Ghuy, peintre et graveur. Catalogue de son oeuvre, Lettres inddites," etc. * Turenne, d'apr^s Ph. de Champagne, 1767. Le Mar^chal de Saxe, d'apr^s Liotard, 1766, et Stanislas-Auguste, roi de Pologne, d'apr^s Mile. Bacciarelli. Demarcenay inv. et sc. 1765. H effe6t of delicacy. Possibly the check to his ambition, by disgust- The ing him with painting, threw him back on the practice of an art Comte de for which he had more aptitude, and in which he could appeal to ^nd the Wille for praftical counsel and guidance. great From his close association with this great engraver, de Mar- j-ly^^' cenay doubtless drew a certain strength, just as his years with Fragonard and Hubert Robert fortified the taste and talent of the abbe Richard de Saint-Non,^ whose zeal and devotion to the great work on which he spent his fortune entitle him to be regarded as the most distinguished amateur of the second half of the century. He had inherited artistic tastes from his mother — daughter and grand-daughter of painters of the family of Boullogne. He became an abbe and a conseiller au Parkment for family reasons, but took the first opportunity that offered of quitting his place, the sale of which supplied the means for his stay in Italy, whence he returned in 1 76 1, bringing Fragonard with him, and, says Mariette, "quantite de desseins qu'il lui a fait faire, et parmi lesquels j'en ai vu plusieurs representant des veues de Rome, dont la touche et le faire m'ont beaucoup plu." He was a member of the set received by Watelet at Moulin- Joli, and six views of the enchanted isle — in one of which Mar- guerite Le Comte is seen with her academician in a boat on the lake — are amongst the earliest of the abbe's performances.^ On his return from Italy, the publication of those " Vues de Rome et de ses environs," which he etched — with, in some instances, brilliant success — from drawings by Fragonard and Hubert Robert, betray the charafter of the impressions which seem to have given a new direftion to his life. This attempt was followed up by the series of " Fragments de peintures et tableaux les plus interessants des palais et eglises d'ltalie," engraved by Saint-Non after his system of "eau-forte completee de lavis " ^ which closely resembled the method per- fected by Le Prince. Already he had begun to plan the great work to which he dedicated his fortune and his life, the " Voyage pittoresque de Naples et dans les Deux Siciles." The passion by which he was inspired communicated itself to others and, at first, he found zealous co-operation on the part of all whom he ap- proached concerning the preparation of this costly work. ' 1 727-1 79 1. Honoraire associd libre, December 6th, 1777 ; amateur, February 26th, 1785. ^ The first date found on his work is that of 1753 on " Vue des Environs de Poi- tiers," an etching executed by its author during the exile of the Parhament at Poitiers. ^ Reference will be made to this and to the various other processes which came into fashion at this date in Chapter X. 15 The Comte de Caylus and the great " Ama- teurs." Amateurs opened their purses ; a long list of subscribers guaranteed a prosperous undertaKing ; artists explored Sicily and Calabria under the guidance of Vivant Denon ; the chief engravers of Paris, Duplessi-Bertaux, Choffard, Saint-Aubin, Daudet, Mar- tini, Marillier, were busied with the illustrations, and the text was entrusted to distinguished specialists.^ De Saint-Non himself undertook with admirable unselfishness the least attractive duties on the perfed: discharge of which the perfection of a great under- taking of this sort must depend. Proof-reading, careful critical examination of the text, were the least of the actual drudgery which devolved on him, and, in this respeCt, as well as in the distribution of the subjefts of the illustrations to the engravers — whom he treated with an open-handed generosity — he showed the same devoted temper of self-abnegation, reserving for his own execution only the simpler ornaments at the foot of the page, in which figured antique vases or groups of fruit and foliage.^ Magnificent success seemed certain to crown this great enterprise, which, begun in 1778, went steadily forward till, in 1786, it was complete in five great folio volumes. Complete also was the ruin of its creator. Subscribers had become weary of the drain on their funds, and in order to keep his engagements de Saint-Non had been compelled to throw into the gulf not only his own fortune but that of his brother. Throughout this desperate struggle with adverse circumstances, de Saint-Non was sustained by the fire with which he pursued his unselfish ends. His character in this respeCt presents a remarkable contrast both to the epicureanism of Watelet and to the formal dignity of de Caylus. All three men are types of their century in its successive phases of development. The whole attitude of de Caylus, with its manifest assumption of authority, is reminiscent of the traditions of the Grand Siecle ; Watelet personifies the lighter philosophy by which they were replaced, but the spirit of de Saint- Non had been stirred by the breath of the coming revolution. His friends were Rousseau and Franklin ; he had generous illusions which consoled and fortified him in disaster and the hour of death. He closed his eyes in the firm faith of a great national renewal ; ^ ' Faujas de Saint-Fond, the geologist, and Dolomieu (de Gratet de Dolomieu), were amongst those who undertooic special portions of the book. ' His work never rises above that of a gifted amateur. The figure subjedts are usually the worst, though there is an etching by him of a woman in bed chatting with another seated at the foot, that has "come" very well and has a real air. One may also mention " Vue prise dans les jardins de la Villa Barbarini, Rome" (Saint- Non sc. 1770, Robert del.). ^ His last words were " Et le patriotisme, se soutient-il ? " 16 knowing also that, by the conscientious perfeftion of the work to The which he had sacrificed his all, he had himself in a certain measure ^ajiut "^^ co-operated with those who were engaged in the great attempt to and the bring the sincerity of truth to bear on the whole domain of know- great ledge. teurs." 7 D CHAPTER II MARIETTE AND BASAN IN the bond which closely united de Caylus and Bouchardon, Pierre-Jean Mariette had always made a third. Cochin describes Bouchardon as " tres-despote ches lui ... mais comme cela n'auroit pas reussi dans le monde, il y a apparence que c'est ce qui I'a engage a se repandre peu, et a ne manger que tres-rarement hors de ches lui, si ce n'est ches M. Mariette^ qui, pour ainsi dire, etoit toujours a genoux devant lui."^ To Mariette, Bouchardon, on his deathbed, gave the letter by which — in direft opposition to the wishes of de Caylus — he appointed Pigalle to carry on his unfinished work.^ " II fit," says Cochin, " conjointement avec M. Mariette, cette lettre, lui ayant confie son idee sous la promesse du plus grand secret. M. Mariette le lui garda et s'en justifia comme il put dans la suitte aupres de M. de Caylus."* Mariette's position in this conjunfture was one of great difficulty, and the fadt that his close and intimate relations with de Caylus remained undisturbed, in spite of what might have been regarded as unfriendly condud; on his part, goes to prove that Mariette was no such slave to de Caylus as has been pretended,^ ' 1 694- 1 7 74. ' M6m. indd., pp. 39, 85. "M. de Caylus . . . et M. Mariette faisoient tres assiduement leur cour a M. Bouchardon. Le premier donnoit par la bonne opinion de son goust, et le second en tiroit de la consideration et presque touttes les contre- preuves de ses desseins." ' See " French Architedts and Sculptors," p. 79. * Mem. ined., p. 55. ' "M. Mariette," says Cochin (p. 33), "libraire et marchand d'estampes, devenil fort riche par ces deux commerces r^unis, et considdri^ en consequence, 6toit fort amy de M. le Comte de Caylus et fort susceptible d'en recevoir les impressions, et de ne voir que par ses yeux." Again we find in another passage (p. 118) an even more decided statement: "M. de Caylus ^toit un homme partial . . . quant a Mariette ce n'6toit que son 6cho." 18 nor was de Caylus himself as intolerant of all opposition as Cochin Mariette would have us believe. Basan There is indeed no hint, except in Cochin's pages, that the friendship existing between these men was ever troubled,^ and Mariette, when writing to Bottari (Oftober 12th, 1765) of de Caylus's death, added the kindly words : "il est dur, a mon age, de voir partir un ami qui avait, depuis quarante ans, autant d'attache- ment pour moi que j'en avais pour lui." ^ The tie between Mariette and de Caylus had grown out of common interests and diversity of gifts. Each found in the other qualities in which he himself was more or less lacking. The varied acquirements of de Caylus, his tendency to dogmatic system and theoretic speculation were a stimulus to the intelligence of Mariette, who, inheriting narrower traditions and special training, was inclined towards the exhibition of pure connoisseurship, backed, it is true, by an amazing store of exad: learning. The influence which they combined to exercise on their contemporaries was of incalculable importance. Just when superior diredtion was failing, de Caylus eredted a standard of attainment which was of the highest charadler : when the passion for prettiness and fantastic graces threatened to blind men to the larger virtues of art, Mariette, strong in the immense authority of his unrivalled colledfions which formed, as it were, an incontrovertible body of do6trine, called their attention to the work of men who had won the heights, to the great periods which have left us the masterpieces of the arts. These colleftions had been to a great extent amassed by the father and grandfather of Pierre-Jean, whom he had succeeded as printseller and publisher at the sign of the Colonnes d'Hercule, rue St. Jacques, with the motto " Haec meta laborum."^ The ' " Ceux qui ont bien connu M. de Caylus . . . ii'ont pas dout6 que, malgr6 tous les beaux semblans . . . il n'eut 6t6 int^rieuiemeiu tres refroidi pour lui. J'ay encore M confirme dans cette id^e par I'aveu que j'ay entendu faire a M. Mariette que, malgr6 le long attachement qu'il avoit tdmoign^ a M. de Caylus il avoit aper^u que ce n'etoit point pour lui un v(^ritable amy" (Ibiti., pp. 55, 56). ^ /ipud Dumesnil, " Hist, des plus celebres amateurs fran^ais," p. 214. ^ This house, in which Pierre-Jean Mariette died, was reconstrufted out of three by his father and mother. (See Appendix B.) The sign of the " Colonnes d'Hercule" is coupled with the name of a Mariette for the first time in 1644 (Le livre original de la Pourtraiiture pour la jeunesse tir6 de F. Boulogne, a Paris, chez Pierre Mariette le fils. Rue St. Jacques, aux Colonnes d'Hercule, 1644.). It appears to have come into the family from Langlois dit Chartres, who died in 1647, leaving a widow who married Pierre le fils. Delatour, in error, gives her to Denys, whose wife was Justine Abonnenc. The original sign of the Mariettes appears to have been " a I'Esperance," and in a dispute over the house bearing it, in which several of the 19 Mariette family were closely united and belonged to the proudest and best and (ype of the great Parisian midille class. Their traditions were asan. preserved with noble dignity by Pierre -Jean, and one may see, even from chance references made by Cochin, how strictly he kept to his own class — married in it, lived in it, sought alliances for his children in it — at a time when his close relations with the great and powerful would have enabled him to gratify less worthy ambitions. " M. Mariette," writes Cochin, " avoit marie une de ses filles a M. Brochan,' marchand d'etoffes ; cette famille etoit trcs-consideree dans la paroisse St. Germain tant a cause de son opulence, qu'a cause de ses moeurs les plus honnetes et les plus respeftables dont elle faisoit profession. lis n'entendoient rien aux arts et regardoient M. Mariette comme un aigle en ces matieres." ^ In this respeft, the family gave proof of better wit than Cochin, whose judgement was distempered by the rejedlion of the proposals made by his friend Slodtz for the decoration of the choir of St. Germain I'Auxerrois, and who resented the influence which he supposed to have been exercised by de Caylus on the Brochant family, through Mariette, in order to procure the commission for Vasse. On such a point Mariette might now be held to have been wrong. The weakness inherent to the position taken up by himself and de Caylus was that it led to a doftrinaire assumption of the merit of all work — no matter how poor in quality — executed ac- cording to certain canons of taste, and to the condemnation of all — no matter how graceful and brilliant — in which these canons were not respedled. No doubt they quite honestly preferred the feeble elegance of Vasse to the vigorous bravura of Slodtz, neither of whom, however, was in the least likely to have felt the beauty of the structure they were proposing to decorate. As regards taste, even in his own special province, the judge- ments of Mariette have not always been confirmed by posterity. It is, indeed, impossible, even for one as brilliantly endowed as he, not to be biassed occasionally by some capricious fancy or strain of personal prejudice. Mariette, who wrote of Lionardo, " il etoit lui-meme une lumiere qui devoit servir de guide a tous ceux qui family were interested, Pierre is described as " marchand de taille-douce " (MS. in possession of Mr. Percy Mariette, whom I have to thank for these details). ' A M. Brochant left a collection of engravings, drawings and pidtures, etc., etc., sold in 1774. He may have been of the same family, but is not the Sieur Claude- Jean-Baptiste Brochant, marchand, fournisseur de la maison du Roy, who married Ang^lique-Genevidve Mariette and figures with her in 1776 in the "Afte de partage," etc., by which her father's affairs were wound up. (See Appendix C.) ^ M6m. in6d., p. 35. 20 viendroient apres lui,"^ is the same Marictte who writes to Mariette Bottari,^ " J'ai une prcdile(;;tioii pour les ouvrages de Carle ^^ Maratte. J'ai plusieurs de ses desseiiis que je met au rang de tout ce que je connois dc plus beau,"^ and who accepted the attribu- tion to Michael-Angelo of the somewhat coarse and violent drawing of a hand which now figures under the name of Annibal Caracci in the Louvre. Condivi, in his " Life of Michael-Angelo," had related that when Cardinal Santo Giorgio sent to the sculptor to ask whether a statue of Cupid, sold to him as an antique, were not really by him, Michael-Angelo took a pen and drew a hand in proof of his claims.^ The drawing brought from Italy by Evrard Jabach,^ was supposed to be the one in question. It passed from Crozat to Mariette, and Mariette was convinced of its authenticity. He refers to it with unmeasured admiration in the notes published by Gori in the first volume of his edition of Condivi, which appeared at Florence in 1746. " C'est peut etre," he says, " le plus beau dessin qu'il eut [Crozat] . . . et je le conserverai precieusement toute ma vie."'' This drawing, which appears to us but a sorry makeshift for a masterpiece,' imposed on Mariette because it was accredited by a ' See the article on Lionardo in the A. B. C. Daiio, which is followed by the " Lettre sur Leonard de Vinci, Peintre Florentin," addressed by Mariette to Caylus, and intended to accompany the " Recueil de Caricatures " engraved by de Caylus after da Vinci. (See also Nos. 192-195, Chal. du Louvre.) The letter first appeared in 1730 without the names of either Caylus or Mariette; it was translated into Italian in the " Lettere su la pittura," and finally was reprinted with corrections and additions, and accompanied by the engravings, in 1767. It will be found again reprinted by the editors of the A. B. C. Dario, vol. iii., pp. 139-164. The sixty drawings were acquired by Mariette. See No. 787 of^ his Catalogue. ^ 1689-1775. He formed the Cabinet des Mddailles of the Vatican Library. In 1737 he published "Sculture e Pitture sacre estratte dei cimiterj di Roma," and in 1754 "Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura, scultura e architettura, scritte da' i piii celebri professori." ' See letter of 15 F6vrier, 1757, " Courrier de I'Art," August 22nd, 1884. * " Prese una penna . . . e con tal leggiadria gli dipinse una mano, che ne resto stupefatto " (Condivi). ^ See A. B. C. Dario, Mariette, t. i., p. 207. ° A. B. C. Dario, Mariette, t. i., p. 213, and Dumesnil, ut supra, pp. 95-97. ' In 1732 Gaburri wrote to Mariette asking him to send him the engraving by Caylus of this drawing, and saying, "Je sais bien que M. Crozat possede un tres- grand nombre de dessins tous beaux et tares, mais n'eut-il que cette seule main, elle suffirait a elle seule pour le rendre cilebre, comme il I'est dans le monde entier, parce qu'elle est veritablement un tresor " (Bottari, t. ii.. No. xcix., p. 359 ; apud Dumesnil, p. 96). Eight years later, on the death of Crozat, the drawing now in the Louvre became the property of Mariette, whose admiration for its quality withstood even the comparison with important and authentic work by the master of which he was possessed. 21 Mariette probably apocryphal legend and backed by the names of the ^"'^ famous colle6tors who had been its previous possessors. " Je I'ai achete," he says, "a la vente qui vient de se faire apres la mort de M. Crozat." 1 He saw in it the virtues that he wished to see. On this one occasion his habitually direct judgement was warped by the desire which constantly betrays the ordinary col- leftor — the desire to recognize unique importance in his own possessions. The one slip made by Mariette is conspicuous only by contrast with the innumerable proofs of his consummate connoisseurship, which constitute his claim to take a higher place than can be conceded to any other amateur. His special distinftion consisted in the fine taste which led him instinctively to the work of great periods, and which rendered him insensible to the caprices of fashion. "On compte," he writes in 1769, " les curieux qui, comme moi, donnent la preference aux ouvrages des maitres Italiens, sur ceux des peintres qu'ont produit les Pays Bas. Ceux-ci ont pris un tel credit qu'on se les arrache et qu'on y prodigue Tor et I'argent, tandis qu'un tableau ou qu'un dessein d'ltalie n'est regarde qu'avec une sorte d'indifference. Cela ne m'empeche pas de suivre mon gout, aussi n'est-ce point une exageration de vous dire que ma colleftion, formce dans cet esprit-la, est peut-etre la plus complette et la mieux choisie qui soit en Europe." " Mariette's natural gifts had been fostered by circumstances from his earliest days. He was born to great opportunities. Not the least of these was offered by the collections formed by his father and grandfather, who seem to have carried on their business with the objeft of reserving for their own portfolios everything that they thought to be of exceptional interest or beauty. Trained by daily contaft with the treasures stored in his own home, Mariette was ready, at an age when most men are but at the threshold of life, to take advantage to the full of the relations which his father had acquired in the conduct of his affairs. On the 30th November, 171 8, Prince Eugene wrote from Vienna to Baron von Hohendorff : " La satisfaction que j'ay des travaux du jeune Mariette m'engageront \sic\ avec plaisir de recom- penser les soins et attentions, qu'il s'est donne de seconder et favoriser les desseins, qu'il a de faire un tour en Italic par telles lettres de recommendations, dont il pourroit avoir besoin et de luy procurer par ces moyens tous les agremens, et facilites que sa ' A. B. C. Dario. See under the heading " Buonaroti." ^ Letter to Temanza, 12 Dec, 1769. See "Lettres de Mariette a Temanza," "Les Archives des Arts, Recueil, etc.," edited by E. Miintz, 1890, p. 133. 22 Frontispice: "Catalogue Mariette." (Pikrre-Philippe Choffard, after Cochin le fils.) louable curiosite et gran desir de se perfedtionner dans sa sphere Mariette ' •. >> 1 and peuvent meriter. Basan. At this date Mariette, who had spent two years in Vienna, was about twenty-four, and we learn from the " Note sur la Famille de M. Mariette," drawn up by " M. Delatour, successeur de M"^ Mariette,"^ that he had started in business with his father, Jean, in 17 14. He was, says the writer, " libraire en 1714 . . . imprimeur en 1722, il acheta conjointement avec son pere d'Antoine-Urbain Coustelier moitie du privilege de I'ouvrage des historiens des Gaules et de France, colleftion volumineuse dont le premier volume in f° n'a paru qu'en 1738."^ The friends made during the stay in Vienna,^ the letters of introdu6lion, due to the friendship of Prince Eugene, which brought him into relations with all those whom he most desired to know during his Italian tour, laid the foundation of Mariette's prosperous and distinguished future. " Ses grandes relations," writes the author of the " Note" already quoted, " le mirent a meme d'etendre son commerce de la maniere la plus brillante et de pousser sa fortune jusqu'ou elle pouvait aller ; on peut dire qu'il realisa dans son etat la devise que son pere ^ avait adoptee." His early debt to the Prince was faithfully recalled by Mariette when at the height of his success, and when his fortune had reached its period of exceptional brilliancy. Special mention is made in the " Partage des biens de la succession " of a " diamant jaune qu'il avait re9u de M. le Prince Eugene," and he requests his eldest son to keep it as a " marque des bontes que ce prince avait eiies pour luy et comme une marque honorable pour leur famille." ^ Mariette's relations with the Prince had not ended with his stay in Vienna and his Italian tour." From letters written in Paris in 1728, we find that his services were in demand, not only for the choice of drawings and engravings, but for the selection of " ouvrages de bronze dore d'or moulu " ; for the biddings to be ' Letter published by M. Eugene Miiiitz, " Courrier de I'Art.," April i ith, 1884. See also von Arneth, "Prinz Eugen von Savoyen," t. iii., p. 70. ^ See Appendix B. ^ Amongst these may be especially noted Antonio Maria Zanetti (i 680-1 767), who was a lifelong correspondent, and Pietro Santi Bartoli. In writing to Temanza (15 Avnl, 1768) Mariette mentions " Bertoli, habile dessinateur que j'ai connu per- sonnellement dans le s^jour que j'ai fait a Vienne " ("Arch, des Arts," i8go, p. 1 15). * This is an evident allusion to the motto " Nee plus ultra," which I learn from Mr. Percy Mariette was not the motto of his great ancestor. ' See Appendix C. ' See letter of the Prince to Mariette, July 27th, 1724, Haus arch., von Arneth, "Prinz Eugen," etc., t. iii., p. 522. 23 Mariette and Basan. made at the sale of the " bibliotheque de M. Colbert," and for the purchase of a " Recueil de quatre cent vingt-cinq plantes dessinees ou pour mieux dire imprimees par le moyen d'un nouveau secret."^ In 1732 he says in a letter to Gaburri : " J'ai eu par le moyen du prince Eugene, les quatre gravures des tableaux du grand-due qui me manquaient." - Mariette's letters, whether they treat of business or learning, are mostly dull reading, though saved by the perfeft simplicity of their style from any touch of pedantry. Every page gives evidence of that exceptionally exadt knowledge and wide experience which, as Delatour puts it, " le mirent dans le cas de meriter la confiance des personnages les plus distinguees et de plusieurs souverains." Although, however, they must be consulted — especially the series addressed to Temanza ^ and Bottari * — by anyone who wishes to follow the development of Mariette's interests and pursuits, that which we find in them and in other writings by him is but as dust in the balance if compared with that monument of learning, to which we turn even now day by day for information, the famous Abecedario. In undertaking this vast enterprise Mariette had the advantage of a forerunner. The mistakes and errors of the Pere Orlandi,^ a writer "sans methode et sans exactitude," provoked Mariette, as he has himself told us, into jotting down day by day the correc- tions which occurred to him. " La fine, reguliere et juvenile ecriture que Ton retrouve sur certains feuillets de I'Abecedario, et qui y recopie des extraits de livres italiens ou des addita d'editions nouvelles d'Orlandi, nous permet de reporter vers 1730 les plus anciennes notules qui se trouvent sur I'exemplaire qu'il avait fait interfolier de I'edition de 1719."^ Thus writes M. de Chennevieres, to whom, aided by M. de Montaiglon, we owe ' See " Lettres inedites de P. J. Mariette," published by M. E. Miintz, "Courrier de I'Art," April nth and i8th, and May 2nd, 1884. ^ " Lettres extraites de la Correspondance de Mariette," Dumesnil, ut supra, p. 299. ^ 1 705-1 789. First Architect to the Venetian Republic. The autographs of Mariette's letters to him, eighteen in number, were found by M. Miintz at the Mus6e Correr, and published in the "Archives des Arts," 1890. They were previously known only in the Italian translation given by Ticozzi, " Lettere pittoriche " (Bottari, t. viii.). * Various letters to Bottari have been published by M. Miintz in the "Courrier de I'Art," July 4th and nth, August ist and 22nd, 1884; January 2nd and 9th, 1885. ' " L'Abecedario pittorico de' professori piii illustri in pittura, scultura ed archi- tettura" (Bologna, 1704). The edition of 171 9 was dedicated to Crozat, "excellent et magnifique amateur et dilettante de peinture, sculpture et des autres beaux arts dans la royale ville de Paris." This edition was the basis of Mariette's great work. ' De Chennevieres, "Un Amateur fran9ais du XVIII. Siecle," " L'CEuvre d'Art," Oa. 15th, 1897. 24 the publication of this work. When, however, we read in Mariette Mariette's letter to Bottari ^ his angry condemnation of Orlandi's ^^ , ... ., , n n 1 • • /- • Basan. carelessness, it is impossible not to renect that it is rar easier to correct old blunders and add new fatts when someone else has brought into shape, however clumsily, the great body of the materials to be employed. It does not diminish the honours of the great French amateur to point out that Orlandi, hasty and uncritical as he was, furnished him, by the publication of his " Abecedario pittorico," with the ground for his own work,^ " Tous les jours, malgre nous, ne remontons-nous pas encore a V Abecedario du moine de Bologne." ^ His warm attachment to de Caylus is dated by Mariette from 1726, but it is certain that their acquaintance must have begun in earlier years. Mariette had known Rosalba Carriera at Venice, during his Italian tour, and when she came to Paris in 1720, she visited him and his mother in the rue Saint Jacques.* Mariette was also often in her company at the hotel in the rue de Richelieu, where Pierre Crozat offered a splendid hospitality to the Venetian pastel-painter and her companions. From the journal kept by her during her stay'' we get not only an entertaining pifture of the crowd of fine ladies and gentlemen by whom she was besieged,^ but an exaft notion as to the regular guests of the house. Amongst these one of the most assiduous was de Caylus, who busied himself, as we have seen, with the reprodudion of the magnificent collec- tion of drawings which Crozat had himself brought back from Italy in 17 14. " M. Crozat," says Mariette, " n'aimait point ses dessins pour lui seul ; il se faisait, au contraire, un plaisir de les faire voir aux ' 1 1 Aout, 1764. ^ When Mariette sent correftions to Bottari for his edition of Vasari, 1 759-1 760, Bottari rephed : "II semble qu'il y ait une malWidion qui s'attache aux dcrivains qui traitent les beaux-arts ; car tous ont commis et commettent journellement des erreurs incroyables. Je le dis en me citant moi-mSme, qui me suis trompd' sur des noms que je connais aussi bien que mon nom. La mcme chose est arrivde a Vasari et a ceux qui sont venus apres lui " (Bottari, t. v., p. 433, No. clx.). ' De Chennevieres, "L'CEuvre d'Art," Oft. 15, 1897, p. 178. ^ Her message to Madame Mariette in the letter of September i8th, 1722, and other letters to Mariette, show a most afFeftionate intimacy. Dumesnil, ut supra, pp. 31-32. ' " Diario degli anni 1720-1721 scritto di propria mano in Parigi, da Rosalba Carriera, 1793." A French translation, "Journal de Rosalba Carriera," by M. Sensier, appeared in 1865. " For example we find, February 2ist, 1721 : " Venuti da me, con madama la duchessa et la principessa di Clermont, due altre duchesse e cavalieri . . . Venne pure M. ^uelus, di nascosto, e per ordine dell' altra principessa sorella, disposta anche ella di venirci alle sei della mattina seguente . . ." 25 E Mariette amateurs, toutes les fois qu'ils le lui demandaient, et il ne refusait ^^^ pas meme d'en aider les artistes. On tenait assez regulierement ^^^"' toutes les semaines des assemblees chez lui, ou j'ai eu pendant long- temps le bonheur de me trouver; et c'est autant aux ouvrages des grands maitres, qu'on y considerait, qu'aux entretiens des habiles gens qui s'y reunissaient, que je dois le peu de connaissances que j'ai acquises." ^ To his collaboration with de Caylus we owe not only Mariette's excellent letter on Lionardo^ — which is a remarkable performance for its date — but the descriptions of " Peintures Anciennes," which accompanied the reproductions by Pietro Santi Bartoli, to which a letter was prefixed by de Caylus, Mariette was, also, it may be noted, the publisher of this costly work,^ but the printing business in which he had engaged two years before his marriage^ was abandoned in 1750, when it was sold to Louis-Francois Delatour, the writer of the not always accurate note on the family of Mariette already quoted. M. de Chennevieres rejedls Cochin's assertion that the Academy could not receive Mariette as " honoraire associe libre " until he had given up his printing business as a " petitesse," ^ but look- ing to the kind of standard maintained by that body in these matters it seems as if Cochin were probably right. The same writer also quotes Mariette's proud saying, " I wish no other title than that of h'i>r a ire-amateur " but that was made only in repudiation of the " quality of painter " with which Gori had enriched him in the notes to his edition of Condivi's life of Michael-Angelo.^ It is more than probable that Mariette cared nothing for the honours of the Academy but that his friends de Julienne and de ' " Avis de Mariette, mis en tete du Catalogue Crozat," p. xj ; apud Dumesnil, ut supra, p. 13. ^ See p. 21, note i. ' In Wille's journal, under the date March 7th, 1762, is the entry: " Repondu a M. Usteri de Neuenhof. Je lui marque que M. Mariette m'a remis le volume d'Antiguites, peint pour lui. Cet ouvrage lui a 6t6 fait present par M. le Comte de Caylus qui n'a fait imprimer que trente exemplaircs. La depense pour peindre et coloricr ces estampes est de trois cents livres, et la relieure dix-huit livres." There is a note on the drawings given by Caylus to the Bibliotheque saying that the plates had been broken up. An edition of the work was published by Didot in 1783. * "Imprimeur 1722," writes Delatour. In the second and somewhat fuller MS. note which is appended to the first the date of Mariette's marriage to " Angelique- Catherine Doyen, fille de Louis Doyen, notaire," is given as 1722, but M. de Chennevieres quotes it as " 15 mai, 1724," and this date is accepted by the family as corredt (" L'CEuvre d'Art," Oct 15, 1897, p. 177). " " Des que le fils (P. J. Mariette) eut quitt6 ce commerce, 1' Academic s'empressa de I'admettre dans son sein " (" L'CEuvre d'Art," Nov. 15, 1897, P- ^9^)- ' See the note by Mariette reproduced by Dumesnil, ut supra, p. 92. 26 Caylus were anxious to have the guidance of his incomparable taste Mariette and judgement at their sittings and were unable to carry their point. ^"'^ The Academy remained unmoved even by the example of the Academy of Florence, which had done itself the honour of receiv- ing Mariette as a member in 1733 ; ^ it remained indifferent to the fine performance of his " Description sommaire des dessins des grands maitres du Cabinet de feu M. Crozat,'"'' to the Catalogue of the Cabinet Boyer-d'Aguilles ; ^ in short, Mariette — even though rumour declared that his most important work, " Traite des pierres gravees," had won the favour of Mme. de Pompadour — did not exist for the Company until " il se demit de son imprimerie et de la pratique de la police, en faveur de L. F. Delatour." * As soon as he had also sold his printing business and reduced his publishing to a mere share in the great work of the " Historiens de France," Mariette received the compliment that had long been his due, and which would doubtless have been paid many years earlier had he been as apt to intrigue as were most of his contemporaries. His purchase in 1752, " avec I'agrement et I'estime du chef de la magistrature . . . d'un office de secretaire du Roi, controleur general de la grande chancellerie de France," ^ no doubt added to his position and consideration in the world. I have seen it suggested that he was not one of Mme. Geoffrin's set, but Cochin, no friendly witness, mentions his name as present at one of her famous dinners in 1760, and adds that he drove away afterwards with de Caylus in Marigny's coach to look at the Catafalque by Slodtz. A year or two later Cochin again mentions his presence at Mme. Geoffrin's " bureau des amateurs," when the quarrel had arisen between Betzky and Daulle over the engraving of the portrait of the Princess Anas- tasia,^ and does so in terms which show that, at that date, the learned author of the " Traite des pierres gravees " was one of the regular guests of the Monday dinners instituted by de Caylus.'^ Evidence that a very considerable fortune was amassed by this great publisher and dealer before he sold his business is not wanting. From a reference in Wille's journal (February, 1769) ' Dumesnil, ut supra, pp. 53, 54. " This Catalogue, which was accompanied by " des reflexions sur la maniere de dessiner des principaux peintres," is perhaps the best known of Mariette's works. It bears his name both as author and publisher, " Pierre- Jean Mariette, rue Saint-Jacques, aux Colonnes d'Hercule, 1741." The first "Description" in one volume appeared in 1729. See "Crozat," A. B. C. Dario. ^ This appeared in 1744. The short preface written by Mariette will be found under the name of Boyer-d'Aguilles in the A. B. C. Dario. * See Appendix B. ° See Appendix B. ' See Chapter IV. ' Md-m. ini^-d., p. 77. 27 Mariette and Basan. we find that Mariette — who had then been promoted by the Academy to the rank of Amateur^ — was attending the Gaignat sale^ in much state and comfort. "J'y fus toujours," he writes, " accompagne par M. Daudet . . . je revenois cependant plusieurs fois dans le carosse de M. Mariette car le temps etoit fort mauvais." The driver of this " carosse " is mentioned in that " Adle de partage," the clauses of which bear witness to the prosperity of the house. The " Cocher Pelletier " figures with Mile. La Croix and Mile. Le Blanc — the first and second maids of Mme. Mariette — the domestiqiie Belleville and the gardener of the country place at Croisy, which is mentioned by Mariette in his letter to Temanza of the 1 8th June, 1 768 : "Je re^ois," he says, " votre lettre a la cam- pagne, dans une maison que j'ai a quelques lieues de Paris, et que j'habite pendant la belle saison." ^ Mme. Mariette survived her husband and the arrangements made during her lifetime as to the employment of her fortune when the four children of the house were married and dowered * seem to have been answerable for the sale of the unique colledlion which was the glory of Paris. It was felt by the small group of connoisseurs who continued the traditions of the Grand Siecle that the treasures accumulated during more than a century by three generations of iconophiles — the last of whom was the most illustrious known — ought not to be allowed to leave the country. A movement was set on foot to secure for the Bibliotheque Royale this priceless colleftion and so realize the wishes of one who had in his lifetime patriotically refused the brilliant offers made by the Empresses of Austria and Russia, the King of Prussia and the Eleftor of Saxony.^ Joly» then at the head of the " Cabinet," was keenly alive to the necessities of the situation.^ " Memoires " were addressed to the " ministre de la maison du ' P. v., Oa. 31, 1767. ^ In his letter to Temanza of the 8th August, 1767, Mariette says: "II s'est fait ici depuis peu une vente tr^s considerable de tableaux prdcieux, de desseins, d'estampes et de toute esp^ce de curiositds. Elle a produit plus de 530,900 It. Jugez de ce que se \s'ic\ pouvoit etre. J'y ai eu pour ma part un nombre de desseins qui ne ddpareront point ma colledtion " ("Arch, des Arts," Miintz, 1890, p. 109). ' lb\d.^ 1890, p. 116. * See Appendix C. ' Delaborde, " Le D^partement des Estampes," p. 92. See also " Documents sur la Vente du Cabinet de Mariette," N. A., 1872, pp. 346-370. ° He writes to Malesherbes : " On ne pourra jamais, m^me a prix d'argent, rassembler un cabinet de dessins et d'estampes tel que celui de M. Mariette." " L'assemblage de ces richesses est un prodige. Ce prodige a enfant^ un second, celui d'avoir transmis pendant pr^s de deux siecles, la meme fortune, le meme gout ^pur^ et le meme savoir (^clair^ dans la personne du citoyen dernier possesseur de cette superbe colledlion." 28 roi," setting forth the " raisons puissantes pour acquerir le cabinet Mariette de feu M. Mariette et le reunir a celui de Sa Maieste." For a ^'^ while there seemed to be some hope of success. Pierre, Cochin and Lempereur were told off to negotiate with the heirs, but their expectations had been raised by the large sum — 69,000 1. — obtained at the first sales of duplicates^ and they rejected the offer of 300,000 1. made in the King's name for the complete group of drawings and engravings, reckoning on obtaining a larger sum by a sale at au6tion. Their expeftations were dis- appointed ; the sale of November 15th, 1775, only realized a sum inferior by 1 1,500 1. to that which they had refused. Joly, in the bitterness of his defeat, may have found some satis- faction in this circumstance, but he had himself had the pain of watching, hour after hour, the acquisition by others of the in- estimable treasures for ever lost to France. The credit of 50,000 1. finally wrung from Turgot came too late — not until the eighth day of this memorable sale was past.^ When Crozat's great colleftion was dispersed the sale had been directed by Mariette; the weight and colour of every word in his description had added value and character to the whole event ; the unrivalled collection of Mariette found no such com- petent handling. The famous dealer, publisher and expert of the rue Serpente, Pierre-Fran9ois Basan,^ to whom the treasures amassed by the house of Mariette were entrusted, lacked the necessary qualification for his task, not having the scholarship which had rendered the Catalogue of the Cabinet Crozat a work of the highest form of teaching. " Basan etait loin d'avoir I'erudition aussi sure que celle de Mariette, et Mariette lui-meme eut seul pu donner de son cabinet le catalogue qu'on attendait."* Basan had shown remarkable aptitude as an engraver and had ' For details of the first sale of duplicates see C. Blanc, " Trdsor de la Curiosit^," t. i., pp. 256-304. " There were a few pidtures, gems, coins, etc. (see Wille, May 17th, 1775), but the enormous importance of the collection consisted in the unrivalled perfeftion of the sets of the work of all the great engravers of every school and the incomparable beauty and rarity of the drawings, the chief portion of which had been in the hands of Crozat. The prices, though not realizing as much as the heirs expecfted, went beyond the expeilations of the outside world. " R^pondu a M. Dittmer, a Ratis- bonne," writes Wille, "je lui fais voir I'impossibilit^ ou je me suis trouv6 (par rapport aux prix que son ami, M. I'Assesseur Hartlaub, m'avoit marquds pour divers articles dans la vente de M. Mariette), d'acqu^rir ce que M. Hartlaub auroit ddsir(^ " (27 Mars, 1776). ' 1 723-1797. See " Abr^g^ historique " prefixed to the " Catalogue raisonni du Cabinet de feu Pierre-Francois Basan pere." ' De Chennevi^res, " Un Amateur," etc. ("L'CEuvre d'Art," Nov. 15, 1897, p. 199). 29 Basan. Marietta received lessons, at an early age, from Etienne Fessard,^ who was 2nd a member of his own family. Prompted as it would seem by the desire of gain, he abandoned his art and devoted his energies to dealing. He put into the trade which he developed and carried on in his hotel, rue Serpente, the zeal, the devotion, the passion even, which Mariette displayed in the service of learning and of art. Basan, in short, represents the temper of that later generation of dealers, who have seen in the knowledge of and care for beautiful things mainly the means of making money and who have valued the knack of anticipating their market beyond any interest or pleasure to be derived from the intrinsic value of the works in which they dealt. Mariette by his personal taste, by his traditions, by his won- derful power of recognizing good work under the most varied or unaccustomed aspects, by his fine qualities of judgement raised the standard of the libraire-amateur to a point which it has never attained before or since and adlually exerted a dired; influence on the formation of that opinion which determined the classic re- adlion, which coloured the art of Prud'hon and contributed to form the talent of David. In Basan we have the prototype of the successful dealer of our own day : his commercial instinfts had been sharpened by his early stay with Etienne Fessard, a pushing, unscrupulous man, whose ability was greatly inferior to his ambition and his pre- sumption. Under him Basan necessarily became familiar with all the courses of profitable advertisement. If Fessard engraved a work, there was the dedication in favour of which money or credit were to be won. He contrived to stand so well with great people that all Cochin's wit and wisdom were needed to support Marigny in his refusal to grant Fessard the exclusive privilege of engraving with his facile burin the " Tableaux du roi," and he succeeded in extracting a " pourboire " of 600 It. for each volume of his poorly illustrated edition of the "Fables de la Fontaine" (1765-1775), on the strength of dedications inserted after every title-page to the " Enfants de France"; he could not even suffer the slight of re- jection at the Salon without making capital out of it by a vigorous appeal to Marigny himself. From Fessard, Basan went, we are told,^ to Daulle, a master ' 1714-1777- ^ Basan gives only a few lines to his own name in his " Di6tionnaire des graveurs." The chief source of our information concerning him and for all these details is the "Abr^gi historique" prefixed to the "Catalogue raisonn^ " of his colledtions, to which reference has already been made. 30 a: w o < CAl << a: w 5 ^ = 'J 33 whose laborious life is represented, as we shall presently see, by an Mariette immense series of portraits, very unequal in value, and whose ^^ ^^ pupils must often have learnt from example that it is better to do quickly than to do well. When Basan left Daulle, he was determined on making money. He bought a few good plates, engraved a few himself, and colleded round him various young engravers, whom he employed and housed under his own roof. Italy did not tempt Fran9ois Basan but, noting the passion for little Dutch piftures of the class skilfully manipulated by Wille, he had resort to Holland, to Flanders and to England^ for the establishment of a connexion. Mariette, with whom he was on friendly terms, may have served him in this part of his business. Meanwhile the manufacture of engravings was steadily kept going in Paris, and in 1760 the public were invited to buy a " Recueil de cent estampes de sujets agreables et paysages, gravees d'apres les meilleurs maitres des Pays-Bas et de I'Ecole Fran9aise par Fran9ois Basan, ou sous sa direction." Very few, if any, were wholly executed by his hand ; but as one turns over the pages signed by Le Veau, Cochin, Lucas, ^ Sornique,^ Pierre Aveline,^ Daulle, Flipart or Beauvarlet, one gradually recognizes a bright, intelligent, exceedingly summary rendering in certain prints which bear the name of Basan : it is, I think, quite obvious, even when, as in the " Hameau de Flandre," after Teniers,^ we find the name of Basan coupled with that of another. The kind of technique, clear and eifed:ive as far as it goes, if not too scrupulously honest, is just of the order which necessarily appeared most desirable to Basan for the setting out of the series of subjefts after Flemish and Dutch painters which were to find their market " a Amsterdam chez Fouquet junior, a Paris chez Basan graveur, rue St. Jacques." For himself alone, Basan claims work such as the " Cordonnier hollandais" after *' Skowmann,"^ the " Ouvriere en dentelle " ' He made more than one visit to London. Wille mentions that Basan was away, in London, in August, 1770. ^ " Le Traitant," after Dumeril, is signed " Lucas sculp." There were two engravers of this name. ' I722-I7s6(?). Basan says "a gravd I'Enlevement des Sabines. m. p. en t. d'apres Luca Jordano, pour le Recueil de Dresde. Sornique ayant laiss6, en mourant, cette planche imparfaite, elle a itk termini par Beauvarlet." * 1697-1760. A. 1737. In 1757 he exhibited three works engraved for the " Galerie de Dresde." ' In February, 1 76 1, Wille buys at the sale of the Count de Vence " un tableau de Teniers que M. Basan a grave." ' Schouman (Arthur), 1710-1792. 31 Mariette and Basan. after van Mien's, and the " Femme en courroux " after Zick,^ the friend of David Rontgens. His title to the execution of these has been contested, but it is clear from the special charaderistics of the work that if Basan did not do it he had at least a very clear idea as to how it was to be carried out under his diredlion. To this class belong also the reprodu6tions of the sketches of Oudry — " ' Le Mouton ' et ' Le Chat Panterre,' peint d'apres nature a la Menagerie du Roy." The selection of a subjeft by Zick was probably diftated by Wille, with whom Basan was on terms of the closest intimacy. Wille seems to have had frequent business relations with Basan. " Livre les epreuves a M. Basan, au nombre de quarante-huit, des planches que M. Zingg " m'a gravees d'apres M. Vernet," he writes on the 4th November, 1760, a date at which Basan was engaged in the publication of the first "Recueil." In 1762 came out the second coUedlion, followed by four other sets at different intervals, the last appearing in 1779, and thus, if we include a variety of independent work, we reach the enormous total, filling the six heavy folio volumes which we find as " L'CEuvre de Basan " in the Print Room of the Bibliotheque Nationale. Before going to the rue et Hotel Serpente, where we find him (No. 14) in 1776,^ Basan had two other addresses. He lived first, 1 suppose, in the rue St. Jacques, where he would have received in 1754 the encouragements of his neighbour, Mariette; then in the rue du Foin * near St. Severin, until the great extension of his trade forced him to seek larger quarters. His domestic troubles may also have contributed to make him desire the change. " M. Basan," writes Wille, January 31st, 1768, " depuis sa separatioji d'avec sa femme, a soupe la premiere fois chez nous. II me fait bien de la peine, car il ne merite pas ce qui lui est arrive." Mile. Basan, however, soon comes on the scene,^ the business prospers and develops, visitors are taken to the shop as to a great sight,^ and Wille's journal shows a constantly increasing friendly intercourse ' See "French Decoration and Furniture, etc.," p. 187 and note 4, p. 190. " A Swiss employed by Wille. ' This address is given in the Almanach des Artistes for the year, with a note to the effeft that Basan is the Paris dealer doing the largest business. * The engraving by Daull6 of Drouais' portrait of Mile. P^lissier is inscribed " se vendent a Paris chez Basan, graveur rue du Foin." ° Mem. Wille, January, 1770. There is no explanation given of the "separa- tion." The writer of the preface to the " Catalogue " says only that " Basan avoit ^pous^ Marie Drouet, qu'il perdit apres trente-sept anndes de mariage." She certainly returned to her husband long before her death. " Mdm. Wille, NovembV i6th, 1768. 32 between the families accompanying the increasing consequence Marietta and importance attached to Basan's position. oil.,, 11- ri-i--i Basan. He plays the host at suppers and dinners ot which it is always recorded that there was much laughter and good cheer, Boucher dines with him to meet Wille ^ and on another occasion he enter- tains the whole Wille family, the Chereau and M. de St. Aubin I'aine,^ whose name reminds us that the two most interesting engravings with which Basan's name is connedted are from draw- ings by that most delightful artist.^ Business did not suffer from this jovial existence; on the contrary, it would seem to have been a means of extending and cultivating useful relations and we soon begin to hear something of the project regarding the publication of that edition of the " Metamorphoses d'Ovide " which was one of the most harmoniously beautiful books of the century.* Grimm, who was no lover of illustrations and who had been rightly disgusted by the wretched performance of Fessard's " Fables," pro- phesied evil concerning the undertaking, but draughtsmen and engravers made a combination of admirable perfection. Boucher, Moreau, Gravelot, Eisen, Monnet, Choffard were interpreted by Le Mire, de St. Aubin, de Longueil, Simonet, Masquelier and Baquoy, The enterprise was, however, the cause of a serious quarrel between Basan and Noel Le Mire, who finally appealed to Wille and three other experts to compose their differences. On the I2th August, 1771, the entry occurs in Wille's journal: " M. Basan m'avoit invite pour etre mediateur, avec trois autres, entre lui et M. le Mire, qui se sont separes d'interets dans leur entreprise des ' Metamorphoses d'Ovide.' M. Basan reste aduellement seul proprietaire, en donnant dix mille six cents livres et douze exem- plaires complets a M. le Mire, et tout le monde paroit content." To have carried out this remarkable work refledls the greatest honour on Basan as a publisher. It places the credit of his taste and judgement on a level with his reputation as a brilliant man of business, and Mariette himself may well have given his approval to its pages. It is, indeed, not impossible that the beauty of the work contributed to determine the selection of Basan to deal with the sale of Mariette's collections. In the notice prefixed by Basan to the Catalogue he frankly acknowledges his debt to the twenty ' M^m. Wille, February 13th, 1770. ' Ibid., June 5th, 1770. ' " La Guinguette, Divertissement pantomime du Th&tre Italien, par le sieur de Hesse," and " Le Ballet dans6 au Theatre de I'Opdra dans le Carnaval du Parnasse, Afte I"^, gravd par F. Basan," See Chapter IX, * See Chapter VIL 33 f" Mariette years of friendship with which Mariette had honoured him, and ^^^ speaks proudly of the " choix qu'il a bien voulu faire de moi pour Basan. ,f ^ /, u- . ' ^ .> 1 arrangement de son cabinet apres sa mort. As an engraver-publisher Basan had affirmed his reputation when he brought out the famous Ovid; the sale of Marietta's col- leftion gave him the opportunity by which his standing as the great expert dealer of the second half of the century was equally established. Neither before nor after had he anything to handle of like importance.^ The names of Bouchardon, Van Loo, Marigny, Cochin and Wille illustrate the interminable list of sales which were arranged by him, but the great event of his career was, undoubtedly, the dispersion of the Cabinet Mariette. With the sale of the colledlions of an amateur of Amsterdam named Neyman, Basan — encouraged probably by the success of the set of little engravings which accompanied the sale of the collection of the Duke de Choiseul — inaugurated the system, since popular, of illustrated catalogues. The Neyman and Poullain sales seem to have decided Wille to sell all his pictures and such drawings as he had in portfolios. " M. Basan," he says (Odlober, 1784) "destine a en faire la vente, est venu tous ces jours-cy pour prendre notes des uns et des autres, notes necessaires pour composer le catalogue." The catalogue was allowed to circulate for a month, four days were allowed for arranging everything at the Hotel Bullion and the sale, which began on December 6th, 1784, lasted four days. It probably answered Wille's expeftations, for the " bon repas" given on the 2nd February, 1785, to M. and Mme. Basan (whose reappearance receives no comment), M. and Mme. Poig- nant ^ and others may be connefted with the final settlement of the operations at the Salle des Ventes. It was certainly no ordinary occasion, for the host adds : " Nous etions en tout douze personnes tres-joyeuses et de bonne humeur. Tous ont egalement soupe le soir, et nous sommes restes ensemble jusqu'a minuit," after which Basan pays his debt by inviting the party to his country house at Bagneux.'^ There was a certain uneasiness already creeping over the men who were concerned with affairs and Basan decided Wille to part with the greater part of his fine colleftion of engravings. The re- ' " Dans le nombre des catalogues qu'il a publics, on distingue ceux des cabinets Bouchardon, Rumpr6, Slodtz, Quarr^ de Quintin, Fabre, les Vanloo, Mariette ci- dessus nomm6, Neyman, Latour d'Aigues, Marigny, Cochin et Aliamet " (Catalogue Basan, p. iv). ■^ Poignant had married Mile. Basan, and was associated with her father in his business. ' M6m. Wille, June 4th, 1785. 34 Cui. DE Lampe from thk " Metamorphoses d'Ovide," 1767-1771. (Pierre-Philippe Choffard.) suits of the sale, which opened on the i ith December, 1785, do not Mariette seem to have been as satisfactory as those of that by which it was ^'^ preceded. "Sur bien des estampes," writes Wille, "j'ay perdu, sur d'autres j'ay gagne, comme il arrive ordinairement," No pains, however, had been spared, Basan himself having "compose et fait imprimer le catalogue." It was the last noteworthy sale in which he actively participated. In 1787 he figured as an expert in the " Plainte en escroquerie de Coutant contre Martin, marchand de tableaux," ■' and a few years later he decided to give up business. In 1790 Schmuzer, writing to Wille as to the sale of an engraving, is told that he must not count on Paris printsellers, for " les prin- cipaux, qui etoient MM. Basan et Chereau, avoient quitte le commerce." ^ Basan died in 1797. In December of the following year Regnault-Delalande organized the sale of the colleftions which had made the old hotel of the rue Serpente one of the sights of Paris. Mariette had lived his life, as it were, to himself; we are told that he hid his treasures as a miser would his gold ^ and did not willingly open his portfolios except to those whose taste and judgement he resped:ed — a sentiment which appeals to every collector ; for who has not suffered anguish at seeing damp thumbs pressed on bronze medals ; prints handled by the wrong ends, and books pulled from their shelves and laid open with a display of total ignorance as to the constitution of their backs ! To such distresses Basan, whose house was genially open to every visitor, must have been continually exposed. No words of mine can better the picturesque description of his life and surround- ings given in " Les Graveurs du XVIII. Siecle " by MM. de Portalis et Beraldi. They speak of the great sale-room on the ground floor, where Basan left on view the pidlures, prints and curiosities entrusted to him ; on the first floor they note the atelier of the engravers working for the house, and near to it the atelier of Basan himself — the gallery, shown us in a little engraving by Choffard,* where he hung all his colledtions of engravings, paint- ings and drawings. " C'est un va-et-vient continuel," they say, " d'acheteurs, de graveurs . . . au milieu de tout cela des corre- spondances arrivant de I'etranger, des envois a expedier par toute ' N. A., 1873, pp. 408-437 and 457-466. ' M6m. Wille, May 26th, 1790. ' See " Raisons puissantes, etc.," Dumesnil, ut supra, p. 387. * This is the allegorical engraving which figures in the catalogue of his sale. Basan is represented surrounded by all his works and encouraged by Mercury, the god of commerce. 35 Mariette I'Europe, des catalogues a rediger, des graveurs a diriger, des and voyages auxquels il faut se preparer, du commerce a surveiller, des ^^^"' amateurs a conseiller et souvent a instruire ; et Basan, ' melange de vivacite et de froideur,' trouve moyen de faire face a tout et, sans rien negliger, de rediger encore un * Diftionnaire des Graveurs,' bien sommaire du reste." ^ From the short notice written by himself in this " Di6lion- naire," taken in conjundlion with that prefixed to the catalogue of his sale, we are able at any rate to glean fa6ls which not only complete the story of Basan's life, but which set it in a light that shows us the salient points of difference between the great amateur dealer of the past and the great dealer of later days. If one dwells on the charadter and interests of Mariette, who traded and pub- lished and made fortune as his fathers had done before him, one is struck by its dignity and the immense services rendered to art by his sincerity and erudition ; if we turn from Mariette to the men who handle beautiful things now, there is a great gulf. It is bridged by Basan. By his clever substitution of intelligence for personal taste, by his dexterity in business, his quickness to feel the pulse of the public and take advantage of the market, he may be rivalled but can scarcely be outdone by his successors of to-day. ' Portalis and B^raldi, t. i., p. io8. CHAPTER III LE CHEVALIER COCHIN THE social successes and the enormous power which Cochin fils ^ exercised through his relations to the Court, to Mme. de Pompadour and to her brother, the Marquis de Marigny, make his life profoundly interesting, because it became the centre of so many other lives and ambitions. He came of a family of engravers. His first lessons were received from his father and mother, for Cochin pere ^ had married Louise- Madelaine Horthemels, and she — as did her two sisters, Mme. Tardieu and Mme. Belle — worked regularly with her husband. Cochin pere had an admirable tadt in seizing the spirit and style of the very dissimilar masters after whom he engraved. Whether his " sujets des ouvrages en gravure " represent Watteau^ or Chardin ^ or de Troy, he displays the same quick-witted powers of sympathetic apprehension ; but his " Pompes funebres : Celle de Madame, Premiere Dauphine, a Notre-Dame, Celle de ladite Princesse, a S. Denis. Celle du Roy d'Espagne, a Notre-Dame,"^ must reckon amongst his best work, and from these we may single * 1715-1790. A. April 29th, 1741 ; R. November 27th and December 4th, 1 75 1. From the Catalogue of his work by Jombert, we learn that he gave (P. V., Oft. 31st, 1761) as his diploma work the drawing of " Lycurgue bless6 dans une sWition," which is at the Mus6e du Louvre. See Salons of 1761 and 1769. He also gave on May 31st, 1766, a portrait of Pope Benedidt XIV., by Subieyras. " 1688-1754. R. August 31st, 1731, on portraits of Lesueur and Sarrazin, Chal. du Louvre, Nos. 2273, 2279. He exhibited at the Salons of 1737, 1739, •740, I743> 1746 and 1750. ^ The best after Watteau is his " Mari(5e de Village." * His engravings of " L'Ecureuse " and " Le Gar^on Caberetier " (sic) were ex- hibited in 1740. " Ex. 1750. Chal. du Louvre, Nos. 4051, 4052, 4053. 37 146419 Le out his very remarkable rendering of the " Pompe funebre " of Chevalier Polixene de Hesse-Rhinfels (1735), on account of its extraordinarily °^ '"' brilliant effedl of space and air. In like manner, the chief successes of Cochin fils were won in the delineation of those court cere- monials such as the " quatre Fetes du premier mariage de M. le Dauphin," which were engraved by the father from his son's drawings, and exhibited together with those which commemorated the funeral obsequies of the " Premiere Dauphine." Brought up to handle the point and the burin from the cradle, Cochin fils showed from the first a brilliant and inexhaustible facility. Under his name is grouped an innumerable variety of book-illustrations, fashion plates, trade cards, ornament, book- stamps and portraits of all the celebrities of the century.^ His friend Charles-Antoine Jombert,^ the publisher and bookseller, to whose industry and zeal we owe catalogues of the work of Sebastian Le Clerc and of Belle, prepared that of Cochin during his lifetime. In the letter which he wrote with the copy sent to Marigny, Jombert says : " Comme j'ay I'avantage d'avoir ete son camarade des I'enfance, et que je ne I'ai guere perdu de vue depuis ce tems, personne n'etoit plus a portee que moi de donner quelque ordre au nombre considerable de pieces qui forment son ceuvre depuis quarante-quatre ans qu'il a le burin a la main. J'ay done tache de debrouiller le cahos de la quantite d'ouvrages qu'il a fait." ^ The letter is dated December i6th, 1770, and, in a note, Jombert says that the total of Cochin's work, exclusive of his etchings, already amounted to 1,262 pieces. If, however, we could add to the list all the work which he produced during the last twenty years of his life we should reach a more startling figure. His first engraving was, Jombert tells us, made at the age of twelve, and he adds that he had preserved a set of sketches, " Diverses charges des rues de Paris," which had been executed by Cochin when a boy of sixteen. He had been placed at that time with Restout to complete a training and discipline which seem to have been sufficiently severe under his father's roof, and • " Recueil de portraits, etc.," Paris, 1755-1 775. See also " Bulletin de Souscription au portrait de Louis XV, par C.-N. Cochin fils," 1779. N. A., 1880-1881, p. 131. ^ 1 7 12-1784. See letter from Jombert to Marigny, with a copy of his "Cata- logue de rCEuvre de Ch.-Nic. Cochin fils, 6cuyer, chevalier de i'Ordre du Roi, censeur royal, garde des Desseins du Cabinet de Sa Majest6, secretaire et historio- graphe de I'Acad^mie royale de peinture et de sculpture. Par Charles-Antoine Jombert. A Paris, de Fimprimerie de Prault, MDCCLXX." (N. A., 1874-1875, p. 316). ' N. A., 1874-1875, p. 320. 38 L'OuvRiEKE EN Dentelle : " DivERSES Charges de la Rue de Paris." (Pierre Aveline, after Cochin le fils.) C.2^ .^uJHl\jll from the studio of Restout Cochin fils slipped away to the work- Le shop of Le Bas. As he went to and fro he made sketches in the Chevalier street, and so doing developed that marvellous facility of rapid and accurate observation which served him well when he came to discharge his official duties as *' dessinateur et graveur du Cabinet du roy." In early work founded on these lessons of the street — such as the series representing the trades of the men and women of Paris ^ — Cochin seizes on gestures and manners with the same agility and vivacity as distinguish his treatment at a later date of the aftors in court pageants, his delineations of which are alive with minute suggestions of significant detail. His first great popular success was achieved by the brilliant rendering of" La Decoration de I'illumination et du feu d'artifice," organized by Servandoni at Versailles, in honour of the marriage of Madame Premiere with Don Philip of Spain.^ Cochin fils had, however, given earlier proof of an almost equal skill and wit. In 1735, the year in which his father was engraving the " Pompe funebre " of Polixene de Hesse-Rhinfels, Queen of Sar- dinia — in concert with the Slodtz, by whom it had been carried out in Notre Dame — Cochin fils was engaged on the reprodu(5tion of a sketch by Dumont le Romain of the illumination given by Cardinal Polignac in 1729 on the Piazza Navona, in honour of the birth of the Dauphin. This work, which was finished by his mother, seems to have led to his employment on an engraving in commemoration of the entertainment given at Meudon to the little Dauphin, in December, 1735, by the Duke of Orleans.^ This commission, as well as that of engraving the " Pompe funebre" of another Queen of Sardinia, Elisabeth-Therese of Lor- raine * (September 22nd, 1741), seems to have been due to the in- fluence of the Count de Bonneval, i\\Q controleur des menus, for Cochin tells us that it was to him that he had " I'obligation d'avoir travaille pour le Roy des I'age de vingt ans, honneur," he adds, " dont j'etois flatte, ne prevoyant pas que je serois toujours fort mal paye dans ce district et que je perdrois toutte ma jeunesse sans profit a leur service." Under a strong sense of obligation to Bonneval, and probably with an equally strong sense of his own interest. Cochin had made a present to him of his superb drawing of the " Reception par ■ "Le Tailleur pour femmes," " L'Ouvriere en dentelle," etc. ^ The fete took place on August 21st, 1739. The engraving was exhibited at the Salon of i 741. Chal. du Louvre, 4014. Sept. 25th is given by Portalis and Bcraldi. ' Chal. du Louvre, No. 4013. * Ibid., No. 4050. 39 Le Louis XV de Said Mehemet pacha, ambassadeur du grand Turc, Chevalier 1742." " It cost me," Cochin says, " a considerable time, and was °'^ *"' countermanded exactly when it was already sufficiently advanced for me to want to finish it, the more so as I saw that it might be a credit to me. ... As soon as it was finished, I showed it to M. de Bonneval, then controlleur des Menus-Plaisirs du Roy. He seemed to want it so keenly, he who was cold and undemon- strative, that I gave it him." ^ Afterwards, we are told, the Duke d'Aumont " eut envie de ce dessein," and as Bonneval did not dare refuse him, Cochin was called in to find a pretext for resistance, but he took Bonneval's part to his own hurt ; in any case, as Bonneval resigned his post, the gift to him of the drawing in question was a pure loss. It was exhibited in 1745, and it is interesting to find that it attradted the notice of Bouchardon. "J'ay eu aussi I'encouragement," writes Cochin, " qu'il voulut bien trouver du talent dans un dessein que j'avois expose au Salon, qui representoit I'audience de I'ambas- sadeur turc a Versailles, et il est certain que cette marque de con- tentement de sa part me fit plus de plaisir que tous les eloges du public et meme des autres artistes." ^ Until Sebastian and Paul-Ambroise Slodtz ^ were placed in command at the Menus Plaisirs, very little was done there. It was not, as Cochin tells us, until 1745 that the expenditure on royal shows became considerable. To the Slodtz fell the conduft of the splendid fetes which then signalized the Dauphin's marriage with his first wife, Marie-Therese d'Autriche, and Cochin gives us lively pidlures of the ceremony in the chapel at Versailles ; of the jeu du rot ; of the masked ball which took place in the grand gallery ; of the gala representations given in the theatre which had been arranged in the riding school, and of the no less splendid show of the state ball.* The masked ball — of which the original drawing is preserved in the Louvre — is the most striking of the set, each one of which has great interest as showing the immense importance attached to these costly royal pageants and the brilliant talent lavished on their produ^ ^ z S K ^ 'J X D ,q X Z3 a »-H >-I » "-^ a! < C X -d < ^ CTv U u > p y H -<: D ■y as < M c- r4 'A P > It was a year, Cochin says, in which " chacun fit asses bien sa Le main : M. de Bonneval, cadet d'une famille de financiers, n'ayant Chevalier < ,1 A/r 1 n 1 Cochin, nen, ou tres peu de chose, . . , ce M. de lionneval en resta riche." Plentiful details as to other indecent fiDrtunes made in the " tripot des Menus-Plaisirs " follow on this statement, and his obligations to M. de Bonneval do not hinder the writer from revealing that the said Controkur " avoit une petittesse de gloriole asses singuliere : sur mes planches dont j'avois fait les desseins, il faisoit mettre T>e Bofineval invenit ; on en rioit, personne n'en etoit la dupe, mais il etoit content." ' This absurd practice was established before Cochin was brought into the Menus, for we find " De Bonneval invenit" on the " Pompe funebre " of Polixene, Queen of Sardinia, which is supposed to have been drawn as well as engraved by Cochin pere. De Bonneval seems to have con- sidered that every representation of court ceremonial which was " sous sa conduitte " ought properly to receive this stamp. In the decorations for the Dauphin's marriage fetes the Slodtz had surpassed themselves. Everything after that date of a similar character was absolutely entrusted to them, and Cochin's share in the performance had no less serious consequences as to his future, for it brought him direftly under the notice of the Court. He had, however, to suffer in more than one way from the ignorance and carelessness of his superiors. Anxious as to the effe6l of his work, he had seledled the printer to be employed by de Bonneval : "je I'avois prevenu," he adds, "que c'etoit un des plus habiles, mais qu'il avoit besoin d'etre veille." No notice was taken of this caution. The printer got drunk and set an incompetent sub- ordinate to do his work, with the result that before a hundred proofs were pulled, the plates, which had been delicately engraved by Cochin pere, were worn out.^ The consequences of this disaster are to be felt at the present day, for good impressions of the Fetes are exceedingly rare. Engravings of the "Mariage" and the " Comedie," together with Cochin's drawings of" Le Roy tenant grand appartement" and of the " Illuminations des deux grandes Ecuries," were exhibited at the Salon of 1750. Cochin had then left for Italy, for his drawings had not missed their due effedl ; they had brought him the favour 2 C( M^m. in^d., pp. 135-137. 'J'en avertis plusieurs fois," adds Cochin, " inutilement ; il les servit done de maniere a meriter punition. Le bon M. de Bonneval lui fit donner une pension. Ce qu'il y cut de plaisant, c'est que I'imprimeur qui avoit imprimd mon ouvrage, qui avail mal servi, fut bien paye et recompense, et que moy je fus mal paye et n'eut aucune recompense" (Mem. ined., p. 139). 41 G Le of the reigning favourite. " II se fit connoitre," writes Mariette, Chevalier <■<■ ^^ Mad. la Marquise de Pompadour, qui, ayaiit resolu de faire Coc in. ^^.^^ ^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ jyj j^ Marquis de Marigny, pour lors appele sim- plement M. de Vandieres, le voyage d'ltalie, pour y prendre le gout des arts, et se mettre en etat de remplir dignement la place de diredteur des batiments du roi, qui lui etoit destinee et voulant lui former une compagnie qui le servit utilement dans ce projet, jetta en particulier les yeux sur M. Cochin." ^ The story of this journey, which lasted nearly two years, has been often told. Soufflot and the abbe le Blanc, who were also of the party, contributed a stock of sober learning, which was a barely sufficient makeweight for the more lively parts of the "petit Cochin." - He had rebelled from the earliest days of his youth against the restraints imposed by his father's training, and on more than one occasion he found relief from the tedium of copying the works of the great engravers of the previous century^ in the repro- duction of sujets galants. The scarcity of his engraving of Pierre's version of" Le Villageois qui cherche son veau " is accounted for by the story that his father angrily broke the plate before it was even entirely finished. Madame de Pompadour could have chosen no more delightful companion for her brother than Cochin. He was not only full of wit and talent, but he had the manners which made him possible at Court and he knew a good deal. Not indeed very exadlly, as a curious passage in one of his letters from Italy bears witness. "Je me souviens," he writes, " d'avoir autrefois lu dans un traitte sur la peinture (je crois de Paul Lomasso) des regies dont il dit que le Poussin faisoit usage " — forgetting apparently that Lomazzo died at least two years before Poussin was born. The letter is in other respedls full of interest, for the writer criticises chiefs of the contemporary Italian school : — Delia Mura at Naples ; Ercole Gratiano at Bologna ; Tiepolo and Piazzetta at Venice, and regrets " la couleur outree dans la quelle les Venitiens sont tombez." He regrets too — and a vision of Watteau rises before us as Cochin notes — that he has not yet had " occasion de ' A. B. C. Dario, Mariette. ^ Lettres de Madame de Pompadour. ^ Amongst these it is said that Cochin pere gave to his son " Le Christ couronnd d'^pines de Bolswert." It is described by MM. Portalis and Bdraldi as " d'apres Rubens " (t. i., p. 504), but would seem to be the same engraving referred to by Wille, March 1 6th, 1775 : "J'ayacheti^ a la vente d'estampes de la succession de M. Mariette le 'Couronnement d'epines,' gravd par Bolswert, d'apres Van Dyck. Superbe 6preuve. EUe m'a coute deux cent trente-neuf livres dix-neuf sols. II y avoit longtemps que je dcsirois posseder une parfaite cpreuve de cet ouvrage magnifique." 42 voir la ros'alba, elle a perdue la vue et on assure qu'elle n'aime Le point a etre vue dans cet etat." ^ Chevalier ^ rm • 1-1 1-1 • 1 T 1 Cochin. There is no hint by which we can identity the personage to whom Cochin writes with so much freedom combined with the deepest respe6t, but as he suggests that Cochin's remarks might furnish the matter for a conference at the Academy, he was probably a leading amateur-honoraire. The letter is full of so much detail that it might indeed be a leaf fallen from the note- book out of which Cochin put together on his return the three volumes of his " Voyage d'ltalie." ^ The return of the party to Paris brought renewed strength to the classic reaction. '* La veritable epoque decisive," writes Cochin, " 9'a ete le retour de M. de Marigny d'ltalie et de sa compagnie. Nous avions vu et vu avec reflexion. Le ridicule nous parut a tous bien sensible et nous ne nous en tumes point. Nos cris gagnerent dans la suite, que Soufflot precha d'exemple. . . . J'y aiday aussi comme la mouche du coche." ^ This sensational arrival put the finishing touch to the success of a most successful expedition. The discovery of de Troy's mal- administration and the illness of Soufflot had scarcely ruffled the sense of uninterrupted satisfaftion. Cochin, who had succeeded in capturing the goodwill of Marigny and placing himself on a footing of friendly intimacy with him, must have felt that his " petites esperances " were in a fair way of realization, and the next step in his good fortune brought him the letters patent by which he was ennobled, together with the cordon of a " chevalier de I'ordre de St. Michel," obtained for him by the all-powerful mistress of the King. To a man so assured of court favour nothing could be refused, and the Academy hastened to receive Cochin, although his diploma work was still in abeyance. On the 27th November, 1 75 1, Coypel informed the Society that the work which their associate, M. Cochin, had been obliged to take in hand for the King, and specially his tour in Italy with M. de Vandieres, having hindered him froin completing his diploma work, he found him- ' See A. de I'A. fr., t. i., pp. 169-176. The letter is preserved in the Egerton MSS. at the British Museum. ^ " Voyage d'ltalie, ou recueil de notes sur les morceaux d'architedture, et sur les ouvrages de peinture et sculpture, qu'on voit dans les principales villes d'ltalie." 3 vols. In-8. 1754. Cochin also published, in 1755, "Observations sur les antiquit(5s de Herculanum, avec une dissertation sur les morceaux de peinture et de sculpture trouves dans cette ville souterraine." In-12. See " L'CEuvre de Cochin," par Jombert. N. A., 1874-1875. There are various editions of these works. ^ Mem. ined., p. 142. 43 Lc self thus deprived of the enjoyment of the instructive confirences Chevalier vvhich the Academy gave " sur les differentes parties des Arts °^ '"' qu'Elle cultive; qu'il supplieroit done la Compagnie, en attendant qu'il satisfasse a ses engagemens, de lui accorder la grace d'assister aux assemblees." Thereupon all rules were cast to the winds. Cochin was on the spot received Academician without any diploma work, and simply contented himself with giving a ledture in the following spring (March 4th, 1752) on the advantages of an Italian tour. Coypel seems to have been prompted by something like a touch of gentle irony when he replied that all depended on the person : " Convenons que pour se rendre un tel voyage parfaitement avan- tageux, il faut, comme vous, s'etre prepare des longtemps." This pifture of Cochin's aplomb is amusing if we contrast it with his reply to the suggestion made by the unknown corre- spondent to whom he writes the letter preserved in the Egerton MSS. " Vous me flattez, Monsieur, que mes foibles remarques pourraient etre la matiere d'une conference a I'Academie. Je n'ay point cette vanite, et n'ay assurement rien a dire que tout le monde ne sache mieux que moy. D'ailleurs je ne croy pas que je pusse jamais surmonter la timidite (qui m'est naturelle) jusques a ce point." Coypel, who had alluded with so much delicate humour to the evident advantages of an Italian tour, died shortly after,^ and was immediately succeeded by Cochin in the vacant post of " garde des dessins du roi." Two years later Lepicie, " secretaire et historiographe " of the Academy, also died and Cochin was at once selected to fill his place. His fellow members felt that they could not have a better representative. He himself was so deeply touched by his appoint- ment that he was obliged to read instead of speaking his thanks and acknowledgements : " Dans les premiers moments de ma nomination," he says, " il ne m'eut pas ete possible de vaincre la timidite qui saisit naturellement toutte personne obligee de paroistre pour la premiere fois au milieu de vostre respeftable Compagnie." Mariette, commenting on Cochin's special qualifications, says he was worthy to succeed Lepicie " tant parce qu'il a le talent d'ecrire, que parce qu'il a de la souplesse dans I'esprit, et, s'il faut le dire, du manege." A hint of something of this charafter seems to be given in Coypel's speech on Cochin's election, and his immense social popularity would in itself suggest " du manege." At Court or in the town Cochin was equally welcome. The " bureau d'amateurs" ' June 14th, 1752. 44 at Madame Geoffrin's adopted him as one of their leading counsel ; Le his close intimacy with Madame de Pompadour, whom he advised Chevalier as to all her purchases and commissions, placed a large amount of patronage in his hands, and the influence which he had acquired over the young Abel Poisson gave Cochin, when his friend came to power, the acflual administration of the fine arts for over forty years. Mariette, whilst observing that, as far as concerned the Academy, Marigny did nothing except what Cochin told him, adds that this flattering position had its disadvantages, for it induced Cochin to sacrifice his special gifts : " depuis cette epoque," he says, " il n'a presque plus manie la pointe ni le burin. II s'est contente de dessiner et d'affedter dans ses dessins d'y mettre ce qu'on appelle de la grande maniere. Mais il y a des gens qui regrettent celle qu'il s'etoit faite autrefois, et qui, pleine de gentillesse, paroissoit lui avoir ete didlee par la nature seule." In justification of this criticism he cites the noble drawing of the " Reception de I'ambassadeur turc," and compares it with the allegorical compositions designed by Cochin for the illustra- tions of President Henault's " Histoire de France." ^ We have but to look at these or at any of the tiresome allegories, which form so great a proportion of Cochin's later work,^ to feel that an Italian tour in the company of archasologists is not always an un- mixed advantage. After his return from Italy, but before he ceased to engrave. Cochin undertook, in concert with M. de Montenault, the pub- lication of the " Fables de la Fontaine," ^ with 276 illustrations after the drawings which Oudry " avoit gribouille a ses heures perdues." M. de Montenault, of Aix in Provence, was a man of parts who had wasted his fortune. He had attached himself to Darcy the banker, and had induced him, as well as one of his confreres, to finance the undertaking. To these there joined himself a M. Bombarde, of whom Cochin tells us that he was simply " un important riche, de ces gens qui font les entendus en tout, sans que Ton sfache au juste * Twenty-nine " estampes de I'Histoire de France de M. le President Haynaut," drawn and engraved by Cochin, were exhibited in 1750. Other drawings for this work appeared at the Salons of 1765, 1767 and 1773. * See the allegorical drawings engraved by Gilles Demarteau I'ain^: " La France t^moigne son afFeftion a la ville de Liege," " La Justice protege les Arts," etc. ' "Fables choisies mises en vers par J. de la Fontaine," 1755-1759. It is said that the frontispiece only is etched by Cochin fils, and that the other engravings signed C. Cochin are all by his father. I note, however, that Cochin pere died in 1754- 45 Le pour quoy, qui cependant viennent a bout de persuader aux gens Chevalier g^ place . . . qu'on ne peut rien <^aire de bien sans leurs conseils." ^ Called to attend the meetings which took place at his house, Cochin put in an appearance unwillingly: "Je fus charge," he says, " de reftifier les desseins oii il y avoit des figures qu'Oudry estropioit a merveille. Mon affaire etoit rangee, il n'en etoit pas question. Mais la partie tipographique etoit importante, et M. de Montenault, I'editeur (du moins celui qui paroissoit, car il n'etoit pas le veritable bailleur de fonds), n'auroit pas cru rien faire de passable, sans la direction de M. Bonibarde," Montenault it seems knew how little the man was worth, but he knew also how important it was to have " les proneurs bavards pour soy " ; so meetings were held and attended by Berryer,^ then Lieutenant de police, and Malesherbes,'^ the son of the Chancellor. *' Never," says Cochin, " did I hear so much serious talk about nothing . . . the best of it was that after many conferences at which nothing was decided, we remained and politely made our- selves masters of the edition, wisely enough or we should never have finished. The smallest printer knew more than they did." At the same time that Cochin was engaged on this enterprise, for which he etched the delightful frontispiece of " Esope montrant le buste de la Fontaine," which was finished by Dupuis, he found time to help Masse, who was then absorbed by his magnificent reproduftion of the paintings and decorations by Le Brun in the "Grande Galerie" of Versailles.^ The fine "developpement" which opens the series, giving the scheme of the interior decoration and the paintings of the ceiling, was drawn, re-touched and partly etched by Cochin ; * nor could Masse have found anyone more admirably competent to handle work full of expressive movement on a minute scale. The incessant demands on Cochin's time, the necessity for the stridl fulfilment of official obligations, forced him to seek for some one who could not only give him efficient help in his profession but take charge of his house. On the death of his father he had ' M6m. inW., p. 71. " Reni Berryer, a protege of Madame de Pompadour, who made him Ministre de la Marine. ^ The famous Malesherbes who defended Louis XVI. * "Je profiterai de cette occasion, pour vous entretenir des gravures de la gallerie de Fersai/les, dont I'illustre M. Masse vient d'orner le sallon " (Cochin, " Lettre a un amateur, en r^ponse aux critiques qui ont paru sur I'exposition des tableaux," Sep- tembre, 1753, CEuv., t. ii., p. 49, note). See also " Eloge hist, de M. Mass6," t. iii., pp. 283-323. The work was begun in 1723 and ended in 1753. ° " Developpement de la decoration int6rieure et des peintures du plafond de la Galerie de Versailles." Chal. du Louvre, No. 1018. 46 given shelter to his aged mother and others dependent upon him Le in his lodgines in the Louvre, where they lacked the attention Chevalier 1 -1 •, ^. I • r 1 • 1 c- Cochin, they required, until Cochin found in the young engraver, bimon Miger,^ one who was exa(itly suited to the place. Miger, whom Wille speaks of as " mon eleve," had been employed by Montenault on his edition of the "Fables" both as secretary and superintendent of the printers and engravers. He had, in faft, relieved his employer of all serious responsibility, but there arose between them a mysterious quarrel, and Miger only consented to remain with Montenault until the completion of the work out of deference to the combined authority and influence of Madame Darcy and Cochin. In June, 1760, when the last proof had passed, Miger took his leave with inexpressible joy, and settled down in the galleries of the Louvre as the " commis " of Cochin with a salary of 200 It. yearly.'^ The household of which he found himself in charge was ex- traordinarily incongruous. " La maison de mon maitre," he writes, " se composait de M. Cochin ; de sa mere, agee de 80 ans ; de sa soeur, personne de 40 ans; d'une cousine de 50 ans: trois femmes bien devotes, et jansenistes pardessus le marche ; d'un domestique femelle pour ce trio, et d'un laquais pour le chevalier." Cochin put in an appearance at this cheerful table scarcely once a month. Miger, therefore, had to do the honours regularly for those whom his master had christened " les sempiternelles " : ^ he never went out except on Sunday to dine with Madame Darcy, where he usually found Cochin, who was incessantly engaged with Marigny by day, and spent his evenings and supped with a circle of friends. This last allusion points to the house of Madame Geoffrin, for, as Alexandre Tardieu tells us, " Cochin fils fut I'oracle du • 1736-1820. R. January 31st, 1778, on the engraving of "The Satyr Marsyas," after Carle Van Loo : on February 24th, 1781 he presented the plate of the portrait of Michel Van Loo painting his father, Jean-Baptiste (Chal. du Louvre, Nos. 1299,2213). His "Billet Doux," after Boucher, is a pretty example of his work. '' See Emile Bellier de la Chavignerie, "Biographic et Catalogue de I'ceuvre du graveur Miger," p. 19. ^ Cochin's mother died in 1767. Wille writes on the 4th Oftober of that year : " J'assistay aux convoy et enterrement de Madame Cochin, n^e Horthemels, mdre de M. Cochin, chevalier de I'ordre de Saint-Michel, graveur du roi, secretaire de I'Acaddmie royale de peinture et sculpture, et garde des desseins du Cabinet du roi. EUe demeuroit avec M. son fils, aux galeries du Louvre, et fut enterrd a Saint- Germain-l'Auxerrois, sa paroisse. Un monde infini, outre 1' Academic, accompagnait le corps de la defunte. Elle etoit d'une grande douceur et avoit beaucoup et fort bien travailie dans la gravure. Elle avoit quatre-vingt sept ans, et il y avoit bien vingt- sept ans que je la connoissois et estimois infiniment." 47 Le salon de Madame Geoffrin et Fame des soupers qu'elle donnait a Chevalier j^ meilleure compaenie de Paris, soupers si recherches plus pour Cochin. . , ,. . ^ 6 ,' ^ -^ „ r r ce qui s y disait que pour ce qu on y mangeait. Yet, whilst playing a conspicuous part in this brilliant society, Cochin's activity in various directions was incessant. If we look only at the innumerable portraits which he drew, we feel that they might represent the labour of a lifetime. Not a celebrated man, nor charming woman of his day, has escaped the delicate pencil which records their features for us — generally in profile — with a sincerity invariably tempered by kindly sympathy. The work which he did for Marigny in connection with his admini- stration of the Fine Arts was onerous and often ungrateful. He had to " menager les Anti-Caylus " in the Academy and at the same time he tells us that he had to remain neutral " et a me garder de leurs conseils qui m'auroient mal pousses et m'auroient fait com- mettre quelques imprudences." Cochin went, moreover, in some fear of his friend Marigny, who was not the man to allow himself to be directed by " les conseils d'Amateurs." Cochin's work in connection with the post he held in the Academy also made heavy claims on his time, yet he contrived to draw incessantly. He put his own hand to nine of the fine series — " Les principaux evenements du regne de Louis XV par medailles " — commissioned by the King.^ The number of other illustrations, vignettes and portraits by him are not to be counted, for on all sides so many applications were made to him, that he ceased to use either point or graver and contented himself with giving drawings only.^ As we run over the list of his contribu- tions to the Salons, we see that from 1777 they consist almost wholly of engravings for which he has given the drawings. We pass from Delaunay, Augustin de Saint-Aubin, Miger, Ponce, till we come, after his death, in 1793, to "la cit. Cernel " — the lady concerning whose married life Sergent made indiscreet revela- tions to Restif de la Bretonne. As we follow the lines of Cochin's brilliant adtivity we must not lay stress on his masterly delineations of court pageants to the ' Four were exhibited in 1755. Cochin refers to this series as the ground on which he thought himself entitled to succeed Bouchardon as " dessinateur des mWailles du Roy." It was secured for Vass6 by Caylus (see " French Archite£ls and Sculptors," p. 88), greatly to Cochin's disappointment. "Je ne voyois," he says, "gueres d'autre maniere d'avoir aussi un petit bien-etre que par le moyen de cette place" (M^m. ined., p. 49). The work was never finished, and in his will Cochin leaves to the "Cabinet des dessins" the allegorical drawings "qui se trouvent faits pour I'histoire metallique du feu roy " (Mem. in^d., p. 149). ' His work in the Cabinet des Estampes fills six large folios. 48 exclusion of the great share which he had in the transformation Le of the ilkistrated book. In addition to the many volumes the Chevaher illustrations of which are mainly due to him, innumerable are those in which we find unexpected traces of his hand. His illustrations of " Le Lutrin," exhibited in 1742,^ are of inimitable wit and spirit : the fat Bishop rolling out of bed when aroused by the angry chantre ; the Canons and the Grand chantre furiously destroying the offending Lutrin ; the meeting of the Grand chantre and the Bishop at the battle of the books on the steps of the Sainte Chapelle, are of an amazing liberty of execu- tion, free also from the influence which might naturally have been exercised by the previous designs of Bernard Picart ^ for the same poem. Compared with these transcriptions from the very life, the allegorical compositions which complete the series are sadly inferior, although they are less mannered than the same class of work executed from Cochin's designs at later dates. From amongst these we may take, for example, the illustra- tions of "L'Origine des Graces,""^ which show a lamentable want of distinction ; but even in his best years Cochin is not really interesting when he is busied either with allegory or the classics. How inferior is his " Virgil " * to the " Lutrin," or to the ex- quisitely dainty trifling of the cuts in the " Pastor Fido " ! ^ Although this book did not appear until 1766, the illustrations had been executed by Cochin in 1745, and are worthy, such is their elegance, to reckon amongst the triumphs of that famous year : the year which saw Cochin designing and engraving the miraculously pretty ticket of admission to the " Bal Pare, porte et gradins a gauche," ^ and setting the great subje6t of the " Bal " itself in the framework of flowers and flights of airy Loves which has so much to say to the general beauty of the effect. The truth is that Cochin was great in handling scenes of his ' There is a great difference between the beauty of the impressions in the early copies. These may be known by the transposition of the vignettes by Eisen at the head of Satires VIII and IX. ^ "CEuvres de Boileau," Amst., 17 18, fol. ' By Mile. Dionis Dus^jour, 1 776. There are six illustrations engraved by Augustin de St. Aubin, Simonet, N^e, Masquelier, Delaunay and Aliamet. It is noticeable that some are signed " Cochin filius " and one "Cochin eques." * The drawings were exhibited in 1742. " "II Pastor Fido. Tragicom. Pastor, del Cav. Guarini. In Parigi. Appresso Prault. M.DCC.LXVI." The title-page, which is an extremely beautiful work by Moreau le jeune, is dated and signed "J. M. Morea [//V] Le j. 1766." The six cuts are all signed by Cochin with the date 1745. All are engraved by Provost, and on two he has added the date 1765. ' Chal. du Louvre, No. 2556. 49 H Le own time with the superb courtliness he loved. Of classic story and Chevalier mythology his conceptions were vague and unmeaning ; he had no more imagination than Boucher; but let him only touch the pulse of those who breathe the same air as himself and he receives instant inspiration. No better proof of this can be given than is to be found in the admirable drawing of the Life School, ex- hibited in 1767, which shows the students competing for the Prix d'Expression founded by de Caylus. Every head is drawn with as much care as if it were the subjecfl of independent study, such as that bestowed in 1787 on the masterly portrait of Fenouillot de Falbaire,^ now in Mr. Heseltine's colleftion, where we also find the superb coloured portrait of the famous litterateur, Antoine Thomas,^ in the execution of which Cochin has employed and balanced red and black chalk with surprising dexterity and skill. Great were Cochin's opportunities for amassing fortune. The speculation into which he entered with Le Bas ^ for the repro- duftion of the " Ports de France," after Joseph Vernet, had a complete commercial success, but Cochin remained poor. Wille, who always had an eye to business, writes on the iith Oftober, 1760: "J'ay retire six exemplaires des marines que MM. Cochin et le Bas ont gravees d'apres M. Vernet. J'ay souscrit de nouveau pour six exemplaires des quatre planches suivantes." Twenty subjedls were originally promised to the subscribers but only fifteen were completed when Cochin took the matter so much to heart that he started for Havre (1776) to see what he could himself do. " Vous connoisses," he writes to Descamps, " les Ports de France de M. Vernet, he bien, je vais faire- un essay pour tenter de les continuer. Vous penses bien que je n'ay pas la sottise d'imaginer que je feray des Vernets, ce ne seront tout au plus que des Cochins, mais peut-etre s'en contentera-t'on faute de mieux." * One subject was successfully completed by Cochin at Havre and engraved by Le Bas for the Salon of 1781. Two others, giving different views of the port and town of Rouen, were also executed by Cochin, but the engraving of one, at least, was not finished when he died, for in his will, dated April 28th, 1790, the day before his death, special provision was made for its completion. "Je charge mon executeur testamentaire," so runs the clause, ' The author of" L'honnete Criminel" and " Le Fabricant de Londres," both of which are illustrated by Gravelot. ' 1732-1785- ' See the Scelle of Le Bas, 1783. N. A., 1885, p. 153. * Letter cited without reference, Portalis and B^raldi, t. i., p. 529. 50 w o O o ot. 5 O Id a. « U J W J S < f-Ti a s u o 0. FQ 5 ^^m-^ "cy-apres nomme, de faire achever et perfedlionner par M. Le Chauffard, graveur, la planche du port de Rouen, qui m'appar- tient." ^ Some difficulty attached to the execution of Cochin's wishes, and Wille writes on August 14th, 1790: "Je devrois etre un des juges et M. Bervic devoit I'etre egalement, par rapport a deux planches non achevees reprcsentant deux vues de Rouen que feu M. Cochin et M, Hecquet,^ avocat, faisoient graver en societe. Cette societe etant rompue par la mort de M. Cochin, les heritiers de celui-cy sont en dispute avec M. Hecquet, qui veut avoir I'argent avec I'interet. MM. Bervic, Hecquet, Bel, avocat des heritiers, Basan et un autre s'etoient rendus chez moi pour I'ar- rangement de cette affaire, mais rien ne put etre decide." To this passage the conscientious editor of Wille's MS., M. Duplessis, has appended a note to the effedl that these two planches were probably never finished ; that there is no mention made of them anywhere ; and that in spite of every search he has been unable to find a single proof. They were, however, most certainly finished and exhibited. The catalogue of the Salon for 1793 contains entries of " Vue du Port et de la Ville de Rouen, prise de la pointe de I'lsle de la Croix," and " Vue du Port et de la Ville de Rouen, prise de la petite chaussee." They are described as drawn from nature by C. N. Cochin and engraved under the diredlion of Le Bas and Choffard. The two engravings are, we are told, the Nos. 17 and 18 of the colledtion of the "Ports de mer de France, d'apres Vernet, et se trouvent chez Basan." ^ The enterprise, to the conclusion of which Cochin attached so much importance, and which so anxiously occupied his last hours, although it had an immense popular success, provoked from the first the hostility of Diderot. He did not love Cochin, perhaps because he owed him so much. The Chevalier Cochin, says Alexandre Tardieu, was the regular source of all Diderot's tech- nical information, but again and again he goes out of his way to abuse him. In the Salon of 1763 he taxes Cochin with being " homme de bonne compagnie qui fait des plaisanteries, des soupers agreables, et qui neglige son talent." In 1767 he goes farther, and brands the two engravers of the " Ports de France " * M^m. in^d., p. 149. The reason for this anxiety is to be partly found in Cochin's indebtedness to Descamps, who had advanced money to him which was to be paid out of the profits to be made after the completion and publication of the " Port de Rouen." He had stayed with Descamps at Rouen. '^ Probably a member of the Abbeville family to which Pierre Hecquet, the celebrated doctor, belonged. ^ See Appendix D. 51 Chevalier Cochin. Lc as " deux habiles gens dont I'un aime trop I'argent et I'autre trop Chevalier jg plaisir." oc in. Diderot seems to have been prejudiced from the first against the style in which the subjedls were reproduced, admirably fitted though it is to render the light facility of Vernet's work. The engravings are of unequal merit, but some are very happy. I never look, for example, at the " Vue de la Ville et de la Rade de Toulon " without the most lively admiration for the amusing groups of figures by which it is peopled, and without recalling Mariette's reference to Cochin's work on the " Ports de France": " il a arrete sur le cuivre le trait de toutes les figures qui y entrent ; c'est la seule part qu'il ait a ces planches parfaitement bien executees." Cochin's own letter to Desfriches in 1781 shows merely the regret that most men of fine intelligence feel when they have taken life too easily. " Beaucoup d'affaires, des maux d'yeux, des soupers en ville, on se couche tard, on ne se leve pas matin, des dessins a faire qui sont presses, ou Ton emploie les parties de la journee qu'on ne passe pas a table, car vous savez que qui veut se livrer a la societe de Paris ne manque pas d'occasion de gueule ; ainsi se passe la vie et apres cela on se plaint qu'elle paraisse courte." ^ The pleasures which Cochin loved had no ugly side. Brilliant talk and good company did no such injury to his art as was in- flifted by the pernicious classicisms and allegories which he brought back from Italy. They were more probably necessary to its per- feftion. In the myriad groups of pleasure-seekers who figure in Cochin's representations of royal ceremonies — dancers, sightseers, busy gamesters at the table of the Jeu du rot — we find a freedom, an ease, a style, a liveliness of air which show perfect familiarity with the ways and customs of those whose pomps and vanities were the subject of his pencil. It is this intimate acquaintance with the manners of good company, with the shades of bearing which differentiate the various elements which make a Court and which distinguish the aftors from the onlookers, that gives to Cochin's work such brilliant interest. It is probably this feature that impressed M. de Chennevieres when he asserted that Cochin had never been equalled, not even by Moreau, for " la liberte, la fine expression, I'aisance, le galant, I'esprit, la variabilite infinie des mouvements et des poses de ses petites figures." Their faces are inexpressive, but every gesture, every movement has been caught from life, and we feel that ' See letter cited, Portalis and B^raldi, t. i., p. 545. 52 wherever Cochin may have been — in Madame de Pompadour's Le closet, under the eye of royalty, escorting Marigny ^ or Clairon on Chevaher their visits to studios, making one of a party of confreres to dine with de Livry and visit the pidtures at Versailles,^ or fulfilling his official duties — he was equally alert and observant, no indica- tion of charader, or humour, or habits escaped him ; the changing pidtures of the life about him were food for his admirably sug- gestive art. Cochin's last years were darkened and embarrassed by the treacherous robbery of which he became the victim. " Ce qui m'a le plus poignarde," he says, " c'est I'horrible ingratitude de ce monstre," and he seems to be referring to a young cousin whom he had taken into his rooms out of charity. "Je I'amois, je cherchois a le former a tous egards. II estoit a ma table meme quand j'avois compagnie. N'en parlons plus, le sang me bout de rage, cependant je n'ay point porte plainte. Je ne veux point me preparer de nouveaux chagrins tels que ceux de M. Pierre lorsqu'il a fait pendre I'eleve qui I'avoit vole." For eight months the cousin had secretly conveyed from Cochin's lodgings in the Louvre everything that he could lay hands on. Eight to nine hundred proofs of the " Ports de France " — unlettered proofs worth 30 1. apiece — had been sold by the thief for 9 1. each ; a quantity of proofs of the " History of France," which Cochin was bringing out with Prevost, had also disap- peared ; and worst of all was the loss of all the proofs which, during an aftive professional life of forty years, had been pre- sented to Cochin by the engravers, his friends — " touttes choses," he writes piteously, " devenues rares et de prix." By a lucky chance, for which, he adds, " I cannot sufficiently thank God, he has touched nothing belonging to the King." "You know," he continues, "that I have in my care about a million drawings of the royal colleftions ; judge of my state, being eaten up with this anxiety, all the time that it took to make sure that nothing was missing. However, in this resped: I have lost nothing. It is true that I keep these things more stridlly than I do my own goods." The letter concludes with a wish that the ' See Chap. V., p. 79. Marigny seems to have always required the attendance of Cochin when making visits to studios. He probably looked to his companion for protection against the weakness of his own judgement. * This visit was possibly the result of Cochin's previous work for Massd's "Grande Galerie de Versailles," for we find in Wille's journal on July 29th, 1761, the following entry: "J'allai a Versailles avec M. Mass6, M. le chevalier Cochin, mes anciens amis, et Mme. Basseporte, du jardin du roi. C'^tait pour diner chez M. de Livry." 53 Le law were less severe, since if the pain of death were not the Chevalier penalty exacted for such misdeeds, it would be a duty to proceed '^^ '"' against the guilty in order to hinder them from injuring others: " mais toutte personne qui a de I'humanite ne peut supporter I'idee de faire pendre quelqu'un." ^ For four years after this terrible blow Cochin struggled on, uncertain now and again whether he could give bread to his dependent household. His pension from the King had been always in arrears ; his readiness to oblige had led him to take gratuitous work which absorbed a third of his time, and besides the charge of the cousin who had so ill requited his generosity, he had the care and maintenance of the sister who could do nothing for herself, as well as that of an aged housekeeper and other old servants — in all, it seems, some eight or ten persons looked to him for support. Out of his great loss he could recover nothing. His fine library alone remained to him, but in the troubled days of revolutionary ferment it was impossible to find a purchaser. In these hard circumstances he died.- On the I St of May, 1790, Wille enters in his journal : "J'allay a I'assemblee de notre Academic royale, ou il n'y eut rien de nouveau. Le secretaire inscrivit seulement sur les registres la mort de M. Cochin, chevalier de Saint Michel, dessinateur et graveur du roy, decede deux jours auparavant, age de soixante- quinze ans et quelques mois . . . notre connoissance datoit de 1738, par consequent il y a cinquante deux ans." The passing away of one who had for so long held so great a place made very little impression ; those who survived him were most deeply in- terested in the question as to who should succeed to his official post and to his lodgings in the Louvre. " I learned at the assembly," continues Wille, " that his lodgings, which were a double set, had been divided; that one half, with the post of 'garde des dessins,' had been obtained by M. Vincent, and the other allotted to M. Dumont,^ whom we have lately received as a member of the Academy and who does little minia- tures." Further than this Wille dares not go in disapproval of a favour bestowed in consequence of the adfive and ill-advised inter- vention of the Queen. " On leaving the Assembly," concludes Wille, " I went to our distrift." Our distrift was that of the Cordeliers, presided over by Danton, of whom we get a glimpse in the journal a day or two ' Letter to Descamps, July 12th, 1786, cited by Portalis and Bdraldi, t. i., p. 548. ' Mem. indd., p. 147 et seq. » Fran9ois Dumont de Luneville. R. May 31st, 1788. 54 earlier, when the deputies of other distridls presented themselves Le to give in their adherence to certain resolutions which laid dow^n Chevahcr that " le Chatelet ne devoit pas se meler de connoitre des crimes de lese-nation," and Wille remarks that the president had thanked them with "eloquence, fermete et politesse." ^ When there was such entertainment as this to be had, the death and ruin of brother Academicians was a matter of little moment. ' Mem., April 24th, 1790. ss CHAPTER IV THE DREVET AND JEAN-FRANCOIS DAULLE THE influence of the great amateurs, backed by the great publishers, could not fail seriously to affed: those who worked for them, but the contemporaries of de Caylus and Mariette had been nourished like themselves in great traditions. They were men who had learned their lessons in the school of Edelinck, of Nanteuil or of Gerard Audran, and the severity of their training made possible the achievements of a later day — the triumphs of Choffard's fairy-like point and the miniature excellence of Gaucher or of Ficquet. The variety of purpose which claimed the services of the engraver as the years went by demanded variety of method, but the training of the elder school gave to the elegances of later eighteenth-century work that irreproachable distind;ion which is not the least of its claims to consideration. That is why it is well here to mention the Audran, and although much of their work belongs in truth to the days of the " Grand Monarque," not to forget either Pierre Drevet or his even more gifted son. The masterly execution of Gerard Audran — the engraver of the " Batailles d'Alexandre " — calculated with admirable economy of resource, had given perfeft expression to the formal and rhetori- cal art of the *' great century."^ Gerard's nephew and pupil, Jean,^ shows also something of this skill in the engravings after Jou- venet,^ which he presented to the Academy in 1726, together with those of the graceful " Twelve Months," after his brother Claude, ' See "Art in the Modern State," pp. 180 and 182. ^ 1667-1756 (see P. v., June 26th, 1756). R. June 30th, 1708. ' Chal. du Louvre, Nos. 981 and 982. 56 the famous decorator for whom Watteau worked at the Luxem- The bourg. The same qualities are even more marked in the " Seven ^^""^Yean- Sacraments," after Poussin, by that third brother, Benoit/ who was Fran9oi3 also sent by his father to his uncle Gerard, at the age of seventeen; Daulle. but Benoit is better known as the engraver of the drawings attri- buted to the Regent in the " Daphnis and Chloe " of 1718, although in this much overrated book, as in his later work, he sinks almost to the level of his nephew, Benoit 11.^ — a very inferior artist. The teaching of Gerard Audran was better assimilated by his pupil, Pierre Drevet,^ than by any member of his own family. No better work of its kind exists than the superb series of portraits which Pierre Drevet engraved after Rigaud* and Largilliere. Beginning with that of Maximilien Titon and the young Duke de Lesdiguieres,^ we pass to those of Felibien des Avaux and of Colbert, archbishop of Rouen, which are even superior to the two celebrated portraits of Louis XIV. '^ or to that equally remarkable work, the portrait of Louis XV. The most complete account of the family of engravers to which Pierre Drevet belonged was given by M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot when he published the " Catalogue raisonne " of their work, which is still the best we have, although we owe fresh documents to M. Rolland, greffier de paix a Givors" — whose " arriere-grand'- mere " was the niece of Claude Drevet.^ " Vous remarquerez," writes M. Rolland, " d'apres les ades dont vous avez la copie, que la famille Drevet de Loire a ete de tous temps une des premieres families du pays." They were, he says, men who tilled their own land and were in possession of their little " tuilerie et a temps perdu, et surtout les jours de pluie, ils fabriquaient de la tuile."^ At Loire, Pierre Drevet was born, ' 1661-1721. R. July 27th, 1709. He lived in the Luxembourg with Claude. ' 1700-1772. He was the son of Jean Audran, who lived at the Gobelins. He began, like most young engravers, by doing portraits for Odieuvre, but we find his name on various prints after Watteau. See N. A., 1885, p. 18. ' 1663-1738. R. Aug. 27th, 1707. * When Rosalba was staying with Crozat, Rigaud gave her a colledion of por- traits engraved after him by Pierre Drevet, and sent the rest on to her at Venice (" Diario della Rosalba," p. 67). ° No. 242, Galerie Lacaze, Musee du Louvre. " In the inventaire of Oudry we find " une estampe repr^sentant Louis XIV. grav^e par Drevet d'apres Rigaud., sous une glace et dans une bordure de bois dore " (N. A., 1884, p. 207). The pidure itself is No. 475, Mus6e du Louvre. No. 96, Musee de Reims, is a duplicate. ' Arch, des Arts, 1890, pp. 186-193. See also Jal, usually a trustworthy source of information. ' " La terre de ce pays est trds propre a ce genre de fabrication et de tous temps SI I The The son of " honneste Estienne Drevest et de dame Catherine Drevet Charnou " was a delicate child, and we find that he received, on Francois the 1 6th August, 1663, the complement of the ceremonies of Daulle. Holy Baptism, having been christened " a la maison propter imminens mortis periculum" on the 20th of the preceding July. ^ A weakly constitution probably retarded the development of Pierre Drevet's remarkable powers. His training, which had be- gun under Germain Audran at Lyons,^ was completed in the school of the famous Gerard Audran in Paris, but he was forty when we first find his name on the books of the Academy. Up to that time his situation must have been rather uncertain, yet, amongst the engravings executed by him, under the protedlion of Gerard Audran, there are several that must rank with his best work.^ Portraits have always held a prominent place in French art. At the beginning of the century a special impulse was given to their production by their seleftion as the subject for the diploma works of engravers. " MM. les graveurs " had appealed against the varied tasks at first imposed upon them, and Drevet was one of the first to avail himself of the permission to engrave portraits only. He had presented himself on the 28th September, 1703, and was obliged to claim the proteftion of the Society, two years later,* against the vexations of the imprmeurs en taille douce, who were unwilling to recognize the freedom of an agree. In spite of this need for protection there was an immense delay before Pierre Drevet fulfilled his obligations. The portrait of Robert de Cotte, after Rigaud — proposed in 1703 — he undertook to engrave in 1707, but it was not delivered by him until fifteen years later. ^ Meanwhile he had left in pledge with the Academy the plate en- graved by Edelinck after Largilliere's portrait of Le Brun, together with one hundred proofs, but he was not allowed to withdraw the plate except on condition of pulling a second hundred proofs from it as a gift.^ il y eut des tuileries ; c'^tait la qu'^taient les tuileries des Remains de Vienna " (RoUand, "Arch, des Arts," 1890, p. 189). ' Rolland, "Arch, des Arts," 1890, p. 191. " There was a family connedlion with the Audran of Lyons {ibid., p. 193). Germain (i 631- 1700) was the son of Claude le pere and brother of Gerard, but an indifferent workman who never left Lyons (A. B. C. Dario, Mariette). ^ The portraits of the Duke de Lesdiguieres and of his mother, those of Keller, with the equestrian statue in the background, of Mme. Keller and of that delightfully insolent old lady " Marie par la grace de Dieu, Souveraine de Neuf-chatel et Vallangin, Duchesse de Nemours," all belong to this period. ' P. v., Jan. 31st, 1705. ' P. v., Feb. 28th, 1722. " P. v., July 30th and Aug. 27th, 1707; Feb. 28th, 1722. 58 Portrait of Bossuet. (Pierre-Imbert Drevet, after Rigaud.) The same obligations were imposed on Drevet le fils,^ when he The in his turn presented himself. On the 30th December, 1724, he ^^[^Yean was directed to reproduce the portraits of Rigaud and Barrois and, Frangois although his engraving of de Boullogne's picture of " The Puri- Daulle. fication " was accepted from him in June of 1726, he received a few months later, in company with Larmessin, reiterated instruc- tions respecting the two portraits still due as his diploma work.^ Pierre Drevet found in his son, Pierre-Imbert, his own rival. In the great series of their work it would be difficult to separate that of the father from that of the son, or that of either from that which they produced together, were it not for the evidence of dates and signatures. Throughout his life the father had had the command, as engraver, of all the most important work that was produced in France, His son had, therefore, before his eyes, from his earliest days, examples of a class calculated to stimulate his re- markable talent. As Mariette tells us, he received from his father daily lessons, not only in skill but in unwearying patience and conscientious devotion to his exad:ing art. If he could only attain his ends, he counted as nothing the time and the labour — often mere drudgery — which he had to give to his work. Pierre-Imbert, thus trained, distinguished himself at an age when others are but feeling their way. At twenty-six he had already produced his superb portrait of Bossuet,^ a work which shows all the quality of his father's admirable handling of the graver. There is the same brilliancy, the same economy of means, the same freedom and breadth in the treatment of the voluminous draperies — in which his model, Rigaud, delighted — and the same delicate precision in the rendering of head and hands. These admirable charaileristics distinguish h".s even more celebrated portrait of Adrienne Lecouvreur, executed in 1730. She had died on the 20th March in that year. On the 24th Mathieu Marais writes : " I keep for the last the death of Mademoiselle Lecouvreur, who was ill but three or four days, who died in the arms of the comte de Saxe, who loved her no more ; and not having had the time to renounce the stage, it was impossible to obtain a little earth to bury her." Coypel had painted her in the chara6ter of Cornelia, weeping over the urn in which she carried the ashes of Pompey and ' 1 697- 1 739. He was succeeded in his lodgings in the Louvre by his cousin Claude, who was an indifferent character and produced very little. He died in 1 78 1 (N. A., 1885, p. 129), having squandered almost the whole of the fortune amassed by his uncle and cousin ("Arch, des Arts," 1890, p. 190). ' P. v., Dec. 30th, 1724; June 13th and Nov. 9th, 1726; March 6th, 1728. ' This portrait of Bossuet by Rigaud is in the Musee du Louvre, No. 477. 59 The it was decided to engrave this portrait as a tribute to her memory. Drevet Hud it been a less remarkable work, the pathetic nature of the Francois circumstances under which it was produced would no doubt have Daulle. given to this engraving a great popular value : even now one can only dare to suggest that it is — and perhaps properly so — less virile and splendid than the Bossuet, which remains one of the finest, if not the finest work of Pierre-Imbert Drevet ; it is, indeed, finer even than his magnificent reproduction of Rigaud's portrait of Samuel Bernard.^ No happier phrase can be found to describe the peculiar quality and charm of the Bossuet than that used by Mariette, who had made a colleftion of everything executed by these two engravers. " Son burin," he writes of Pierre-Imbert, " est d'une couleur extremement douce et brillante et Ton ne peut regarder sans etonnement les recherches dans lesquelles il est entre, et avec quelle legerete, quelle precision, il a execute chaque objet suivant le caraftere qui lui convenoit."^ Something of the wonderful success of the Bossuet engraving must be credited to the extraordinary pains taken by Rigaud to ensure the perfeft reproduction of this portrait. One usually expedls to find that the engraver has himself made the drawing from which he has worked, but, in this instance, the painter per- formed this task, and performed it as Rigaud alone was capable of doing. Wille, the engraver, who was known to Rigaud, and who is certain to have understood what he was writing about, tells us that on the 2nd of January, 1762, he is exhibiting at his own house the original drawing made by Rigaud " pour la gravure du beau portrait de Bossuet, eveque de Meaux, chef-d'oeuvre de gravure de M. Drevet, le fils. J'ay fait I'acquisition," he says, " de ce magnifique dessein en vente publique, provenant de la suc- cession de M. Rigaud," and adds that his purchase was keenly contested ; that he had been offered 300 It. for it, but that he would not take double the money, because of the pleasure it gives him. The portrait of Adrienne Lecouvreur was the last important work of Pierre-Imbert Drevet. As far as the dates can be pieced together, it was in 1726 that he suffered the sunstroke, during a fete at Versailles, which for a time deprived him of reason and from which he never completely recovered. If this is corredt, then this fine portrait must have been executed, with the help possibly of his father, during an interval of suffering. His madness was not, we are told, " une folie complete, mais ' Described as by Pierre Drevet sometimes, but it is signed " Pierre-Imbert Drevet." ' A. B. C. Dario, Mariette. 60 bien line imbecillite intermittente," and when at Loire he would The often have himself rowed out to the middle of the Rhone. There, ^^''^Yean- with a glass, he drank water dipped from the midstream, believing Francois that it would bring him back his wits.^ If, as they say, he was Daulle. but twenty-nine when this happened, we have to count thirteen terrible years of conscious suffering before Pierre-Imbert was released by death. With him the last representative of what one may call the fixity of style which was a mark of the school of Gerard Audran passed away, nor can one speak of any who succeeded him as showing the same faith in and perfedt intelligence of the resources of pure line. Fran9ois Chereau,- the best of Pierre Drevet's pupils, died nine years before his master. The learned and decisive execution of his fine series of portraits after Rigaud — amongst which the masterly " Nicolas de Launay " may be cited as an example — give him a serious claim to notice, for they show admirable dexterity in handling the burin, and this dexterity, like his drawing, is devoted to the exaft rendering of his subjedt. His brother Jacques^ sustained the traditions of his training by his fine engraving of Van Loo's portrait of Marie Leckzinska, but the third pupil of the Drevet, Simon Vallee, was carried away by the attractions of the etching needle. Simon Vallee was not the only one in whom at this date a certain impatience of the long labour imposed by work in pure line declared itself. The use of the process of etching for the preparation of the plate had had the authority of Gerard Audran, but gradually the temper of the day sought out more adventurous methods. The Academy even discussed the possibility of imitating with the graver the pidluresque values and lively character proper to an etching. Nicolas Dupuis** took up the challenge and engraved " Enee sauvant son pere," after Carle Van Loo — which ' "Arch, des Arts," 1890, p. 189. See also Didot, " Lcs Drevet," pp. xviii, xix. ^ 1680-1729. R. March 26th, i 718, on the engraved portrait of "de Boullongne le jeune": he died witliout having executed the second, which should have been that of Alexandre, after Louis de BouUogne (A. de I'A. fr., t. ii., p. 363). ' 1688- 1 776. He does not seem to have been received by the Academy, having left France for England, where he joined Dubosc, Beauvais and Bernard Lepicic. He assisted to engrave the cartoons of Raphael at Hampton Court ; his name appears also on a print of George I., after Kneller, which was probably executed by him during his stay in London. ' 1696-1771. R. June 28th, 1754. Curious details of his agreement to engrave the Louis XV. monument by J. B. Lemoyne at Rennes are given in A. de I'A. fr., t. vi., pp. 113, 123, 124-126, 131. He exhibited this engraving, together with his portrait of de Tournehem in 1755, and in 1759 sent to the Salon another after Le- moyne's " Statue equestre du Roi, elevee dans la Place de Bordeaux." 61 The he exhibited in 1 751 — on this fashion, and his friend Gaucher' ^"■^Y* assures us that, " although this engraving is wholly executed by Francois '^he graver, one can recognize the wit, lightness and happy Daulle. audacity of a skilled needle." Other work by Dupuis is not unattractive — if one does not ask too much — as, for example, " Le Glorieux," after Lancret, which he sent to the Salon of 1741 with " Le Philosophe Marie," en- graved by his brother Charles. In the small portraits, such as that of Wouvermans — piftor Batavus — which he framed in ornamental borders, his work is often slight but always intelligent, and the remarkable engraving of " Le Roi gouverne par lui-meme," which bears his name in the "Grande galerie de Versailles," justified Masse in urging Dupuis to present himself at the Academy, where he was received on the portrait of de Tournehem after Tocque, which is one of his best works. This fine print, dignified and sound in execution, has yet a somewhat commonplace aspe6l if one sets it beside the work of either of the Drevet. It is amazing to learn that Rigaud, who had been so brilliantly interpreted by the father and son, should have cooled towards them in his later years. He imagined, it is said, that they ceased to pay him as much respedt and to serve him with as much zeal. Whilst he was in this state of irritation, it so happened that a proof of the engraving by Jean Daulle^ of Mignard's portrait of his beautiful daughter, the Countess de Feuquieres, fell into his hands. He was enchanted by the facility and brilliancy of Daulle's execution, and at once decided to put his work for the future into his hands and make him his engraver.^ Daulle had arrived from Abbeville, that nursery of great engravers, fairly skilled in his art. Hecquet,* who was his countryman, gave him food and lodging, and set him to engrave large "planches de theses." Under his diredlion Daulle acquired extraordinary pradtical facility and Hecquet, it would seem, both procured him the portrait of Mme. de Feuquieres to engrave and arranged that it should be seen by Rigaud, of whose coolness towards the Drevet he was probably aware. ' i740-i8o2(?). R.A. Lond. A pupil of Le Bas. See Renouvier, "Hist.de I'art pendant la Revolution," t. ii., p. 328. He was not only a remarkable engraver, but knew a great deal about his art. He contributed to the " Diftionnaire des Artistes " of the abb6 de Fontenai, from which the above passage is cited, and exhibited at the Salon of 1793 " Portraits graves," " Portraits dessines" and " Estampes d'aprcs difFerens maitres." ^ 1703-1763. R. June 30th, 1742. Mariette gives date of birth 1711 ; Portalis and Beraldi, May i8th, 1703. See Jal. ' Mariette, A. B. C. Dario. ' Ibid, See also p. 51, note 2. 62 Adrienne Lecouvreur as Cornelia. (PlERRE-I.MBERT DrEVET, AFTER CoVPEL.) The " Comtesse de Feuquieres " bears date 1735 and was The therefore executed about four years before the death of the younger ^^^Yean- Drevet, who had engraved Rigaud's fine Bossuet ; his father must Francois have witnessed the preference given to Daulle and seen his first Daulle. success with the portrait of Gendron, the oculist, which he com- pleted, after Rigaud, in 1737.^ In the execution of this fine work, as in others produced during Rigaud's lifetime, Daulle no doubt enjoyed the enormous advantage of the painter's diredl and skilled supervision. " Sous la conduite," says Mariette, " d'un peintre si intelligent, Daulle fit plusieurs chefs d'ceuvre, qui lui meriterent une place dans I'Academie royale de peinture et de sculpture."^ The work which Daulle engraved for his reception is well known. No more taking subjeft could have been found than that in which Rigaud has represented himself painting the portrait of his wife, Elisabeth de Gouy.^ It is not, however, without some surprise that we find that the painter who had been so fascinated by Daulle's talent was adtually employing Wille, at the same time, to also reproduce this pidure.* As Rigaud died in 1743, it is prob- able that he never saw the plate engraved by his special protege, and the work has a certain lack of accent in the treatment of the heads — especially in that of Rigaud — which compares unfavour- ably with the handling of the portrait of Gendron. That is perhaps the best of Daulle's portraits, if we except his charming " Comtesse de Caylus," ^ though even in that we find some weak- ness in the character of the head, which is not the best part of the work. De Caylus himself had probably commissioned the engraving of this portrait of his mother at not too high a price, and it enjoyed a success which again may have owed something to the attradlions of the original. It contributed to cause that press of work which obliged Daulle to seek for outside help in order to fulfil his engagements. Fortunately, he found in Jean-Georges Wille, the famous engraver of the " Satin Gown," an assistant whose style of execution bore the closest likeness to his own. Wille, who had not been long in Paris, was leading the usual student's life, getting his daily bread from Odieuvre,^ who, he says, did not pay much, but did pay. In his own time he worked on the engraving — from which he hoped to build up ' Ex. Salon, 1742, together with " Mme. de Feuquieres" and "Rigaud et son Spouse." ' A. B.C. Dario, Mariette. ' Chal. du Louvre, No. 2271. ' N. A., 1884, p. 57; "French Painters, etc.," p. I4r. " See pp. 4 and 5. " See Chapter V, 63 The Drevet and Jean- Fran9ois Daulle. his own future — of the portrait of the Duke de Belle-Isle, which had been entrusted to him by Rigaud. In this conjunfture Daulle, says Wille, came to see him and entreated him to come to his rescue by helping to engrave the portraits of " the Pretender and his brother the Duke of York." Wille was to do everything but the heads, and he seems to have felt aggrieved at the arrangement. "Je dois observer ici," he adds, " que M. Daulle s'etoit reserve la gravure des tetes de ces princes; et les ayant finies, il mit son nom sur des planches ainsi fagotees, et dont je pouvois etre jaloux." ^ His irritation did not, however, prevent him from again accepting the same sort of work from Daulle, at a later date, on the portrait of Maupertuis, in which we have another example of the usual defeft of his portraits, even when executed wholly by himself, for the furs and other accessories strike the eye more forcibly than the head of the man who wears them.^ It is clear from the way in which Daulle divided labour with Wille that no want of confidence in his own powers led him to abandon his work on portraits and to take up the engraving of subjefts. " He was yet," says Mariette, " in the prime of life when he became disgusted with the style of portraits, which appeared to him to require a slavish constraint." He began with some prettily arranged subjefts after Boucher, such as " Les Amours en gayete," dated 1750,^ and one of a couple referred to by Mariette as having been engraved by Daulle from drawings by Jeaurat, after Poussin, is to be identified with the " Nymph and Love asleep, surprised by Satyrs," which belongs to the National Gallery. These are not works which can add to Daulle's reputation. Many show an incredible carelessness, and even the best, such as the subjedts which he engraved for the " Galerie de Dresde,"* be- tray something of his lack of that science du dessin without which no man, however skilfully he may " cut the copper," can become ' The two portraits in question appear to be the pair, Nos. 112 and 113, Portalis and B^raldi. Daulle had previously executed one of the " Pretender " on a larger scale. No. iii, ibid. ^ Maupertuis, on his return from his journey to the Ardtic regions, had his portrait painted in the costume which he had worn in Lapland. Ex. Salon, 1743. ^ There are also the " Elements," which appear to have been executed about the same time. They are dedicated to the Count de Briihl. "Les Amours en gayete" appeared at the Salon of 1750, together with the " Naissance et triomphe de V^nus d'apres I'esquisse de M. Boucher." ' This magnificent collection of engravings after the finest works in the Gallery was undertaken at his own expense by Heinecken, the secretary to Count de Briihl, after he was made, in 1746, Director of the Gallery at Dresden. He would have been ruined had not the King (Augustus IIL of Poland) come to the rescue. 64 a great engraver. The portraits — of which not all the best were The produced under the keen eye of Rigaud — will always be the better ^^[^Y^an part of Daulle's title to remembrance. Fran9ois " Daulle, Gaillard, Tardieu," suggests Wille in 1759, when Daulle. refusing to himself engrave, for the second time, the portrait of the Duke de Belle-Isle : ^ and although there was an unfortunate episode in 1761 regarding the portrait by Roslin of " S. A. S. Mme. Anastasie, landgravine de Hesse-Hombourg, nee princesse Troubetskoy," ^ it can hardly have put an end to Daulle, as Ma- riette affirms — " c'est par ou il a fini sa triste carriere " — since his fine portrait of La Peyronie was executed two years later. Mariette is, most likely, rather hard on Daulle, who had reason to complain of the terms for the engraving of the portrait of " Anastasie." These had been the subject of one of those arrangements by his friend de Caylus which excited the wrath of Cochin and the indignation of those who were trapped into accepting them. The circumstances of Daulle's bad bargain were so disastrous that Cochin selects it as an example " entre plusieurs marches dont j'ay eu connoissance de la fa9on de M. de Caylus." The work was first offered to Wille,^ but as Cochin puts it, " M. Ville dont la vue . . . finissoit, ne vouloit point se charger de grands ouvrages, a moins que ce fut pour lui des coups de fortune. . . . M. Ville done demanda d'abord un prix exhorbitant, trente mille livres ; mais enfin il se restraignit a seize " ; but this price was still too high for General Betsky,* at whose cost the work was to be done. Cochin describes M. de Caylus as furious, as abusing Wille, and as seeming to think that the purse of the Russian ought to be spared even at the expense of French artists. Then, says Cochin, de Caylus went off to Daulle and bullied him until he managed to get from him a written undertaking to engrave the pi