Draft:French engraving in the 17th century

French engraving in the 17th century was marked by the flourishing of techniques such as etching and burin, and the invention of new techniques such as the manière noire. . In the first half of the century, France saw the development of these techniques, in particular with the invention of hard varnish by Jacques Callot. The Lorraine region was very active at the time, producing many religious and picturesque prints. Despite the boom in France, it was the Netherlands that dominated the European printmaking world. The second half of the century was marked by great interventionism on the part of the royal authorities in the world of printmaking. In 1660, the profession was organised by a Conseil d'État ruling in Saint Jean de Luz, and three years later, the first engravers entered the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Under the impetus of Louis XIV and Jean-Baptiste Colbert, engraving became a means of disseminating royal power. At the same time, print collecting began to take off, as illustrated by the considerable collection of Abbé Michel de Marolles.

Wood engraving
During the 17th century, wood engraving (or xylography) faced increasingly fierce competition from burin engraving, which allowed for greater line finesse. From the beginning of the century, it became increasingly rare in the publishing world, first for scientific books (from the start of the century) and then for fine books (around 1630 for Paris, around 1650 for Lyon). Although the technique regained popularity at the end of the century for large print runs, the woods used were often reused from the sixteenth century. Nevertheless, we should highlight the publishing project of Guillaume Desprez, a printer close to Port-Royal. He commissioned a set of woodcuts specifically for his edition of the Old Testament, which appeared between 1683 and 1708.

This technique also continued to be used to produce popular prints, such as the mazarinades, which were mass-produced during the Fronde. Because xylography is an intaglio engraving technique, print runs are larger and faster than intaglio engravings.

The chisel
Chisel engraving first appeared in southern Germany around 1470 and underwent significant development throughout the 16th century. However, in the first half of the 17th century, it was considered particularly suitable for reproducing paintings. Imitation engravings were sometimes produced directly in the painter's studio. This was the case, for example, with Jacques Stella, whose nieces Antoinette and Claudine Bouzonnet-Stella and nephew Antoine Bouzonnet-Stella worked in his studio in the Louvre and engraved their uncle's works, while themselves working as painters and draughtsmen. The special feature of this family organisation was that it enabled two engravers to have a recognised output, which was still rare in the 17th century.

Nevertheless, inventive engraving with the burin continues to exist, as shown by the work of Claude Mellan. This engraver, the son of a boilermaker and trained in Rome, stood out for his highly technical mastery of the burin. For example, he created the Sainte Face from a spiral, the thickness of the line of which is varied to create the design.

Etching
Although introduced to France in the 1540s through the École de Fontainebleau, etching enjoyed unprecedented success during the 17th century. This was due to better mastery of etching techniques, the introduction of copper plates and, above all, the discovery of hard varnish. Jacques Callot is credited with creating this substance, which is more resistant to acid and has the advantage of not flaking or sinking into hollows, resulting in sharper, more precise lines.

In addition, he introduced the use of the "échoppe", a tool similar to the burin, which enabled the thickness of the line to be varied.

Lastly, progress in the mastery of the bite led to the development of half-tones. The development of this technique enabled artists to engrave, insofar as the difficult mastery of the burin was not required to practise etching. This was the case, for example, of Claude Lorrain, who, in addition to producing a large number of drawings and paintings, produced over forty etchings.

Printmaking professions
To produce a print, a number of different trades come into play: draughtsman, engraver, printer, publisher, dealer, etc. Often, several roles can be held by the same person (the engraver can be the draughtsman). Sometimes it varies depending on the project. It was not uncommon for engravers to also be publishers and merchants. In the 17th century, as these professions were relatively new, some artists also practised painting or goldsmithing alongside engraving.

Engraver
The engraver is the person who creates the matrix used to print the prints (engraved wooden board, incised or mortised metal plate). He may have drawn the design himself or taken one from another artist. In the 17th century, the notions of inventing or reproducing a motif did not yet have the same value as they do today (since the 19th century, the act of creation has been valued more highly than the act of execution). At that time, the act of reproduction was considered to be an act of interpretation. To determine whether an artist invented or engraved a motif, you need to look at his or her signature (if there is one).

If he is the inventor of the motif, his name will be followed by the term "invenit" (inventa), "pinxit" (peignit) or "delineavit" (dessina).

If he is the engraver (reproduction, interpretation) of the motif, his name will be followed by the term "sculpsit" (sculpta) or "incidit" (incisa).

Finally, the term "fecit" (fit) is problematic because it is ambiguous and does not allow us to decide on the role of the author.

It should also be pointed out that a study of the Inventory of the French Collection shows that many engravers have few prints attributed to them. This can be explained by the fact that for many engravers engraving is only a secondary activity. This is the case, for example, of goldsmiths who only engrave for a specific project, amateurs who only engrave for personal interest, to spread an idea or as part of their training, or artists or architects who sporadically try their hand at engraving, such as Charles Le Brun.

Organisation of the profession
Under the reign of Louis XIV, printmaking and the engraving profession really took off. The question then arose of how to organise the profession.

In the 17th century, crafts and arts were generally organised into guilds. These regulated the professions by setting a numerus clausus, issuing a compulsory master's degree (obtained after training) and charging a fee to their members. A guild of engravers would have protected their skills but would not have encouraged creative freedom. What's more, this kind of system would have relegated engraving to a craft, even though some engravers claimed to be artists (following the same logic as the debate on the status of painters and sculptors that shook the Renaissance). So while the architect François Mansart and the engraver Robert Nanteuil wanted the guild to be set up, Louis XIV opposed it, favouring the dynamism of creative freedom.

Thus, despite several attempts to subject engravers to the corporate system, , they officially obtained freedom of their profession with the ruling of the Council of State of Saint Jean de Luz, on 26 May 1660. This act established engraving as a liberal art and guaranteed engravers their independence from any corporate system. This ruling was respected by engravers and print dealers throughout the reign of Louis XIV. Only the intaglio printers organised themselves into a community in 1677.

However, a number of Parisian engravers, printers and merchants joined forces to form the Brotherhood of Saint John. This enabled them to help each other without going through the Compagnonnage system. In this way, they could form a syndic, help engravers' orphans or appoint someone to be in charge of the community's budgets. There were also many marriages between the families of engravers, printers and publishers. Women also played an active role in the engraving workshops.

Academy
In 1663, for the first time, an engraver joined the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture as an engraver (and not as a professor of perspective, as Abraham Bosse had been in 1650, for example). Under Colbert's ministry, seventeen engravers joined the ranks of the academicians, including François Chauveau, Gilles Rousselet, Grégoire Huret, Pierre Louis Van Schuppen, Guillaume Chasteau, Etienne Picard and Guillaume Valet. Among the first to achieve this status were people close to Charles Le Brun, the king's first painter and director of the Gobelins factory. He was particularly sensitive to this art, as his brother (Gabriel Le Brun) and brother-in-law were engravers. He therefore quickly surrounded himself with engravers who interpreted his works in engraving, such as Gilles Rousselet, and installed them with him at the Gobelins manufactory.

This integration was important because it enabled engravers to legitimise their status as artists rather than craftsmen. Some were even appointed as the king's ordinary engravers (Etienne Baudet, Claude Mellan, Sébastien Leclerc, Robert Nanteuil, etc.).

However, this legitimisation of the artistic status of engravers was not without its problems. In 1686, the painter Van der Meulen demanded that painters and sculptors should be seated in the first row of the class of councillors, while engravers, who were second-rate artists, took their place in the second row. What's more, after Colbert's death, the new minister Louvois gave much less encouragement to the inclusion of engravers in the academy. The only engravers who were admitted were those who replaced a deceased engraver. It was not until 1699 that a new place dedicated to this art was created.

International mobility
French engraving in the early 17th century was at the crossroads between Flemish, Dutch and Italian engraving. Between 1598 and 1639, twelve Dutch engravers and thirty Flemish engravers established themselves in the French capital. Some of these artists stopped off in Paris on their way from Italy to Northern Europe. This was the case, for example, of Charles de Mallery, an engraver from Antwerp who, after a stay in Rome, found himself in Paris at the dawn of the 17th century, where he produced devotional images and portraits, before returning to his native city at a date unknown to us. Many Flemish engravers settled permanently in Paris because of the political unrest in their region.

Many French artists spent time in Rome, including Claude Mellan, who completed his apprenticeship there and began his career before returning to France for reasons that are still unknown. During his stay, he frequented Simon Vouet, a French painter who lived in the Italian city and developed an engraving technique that made it possible to faithfully illustrate the rendering of sculpture. Jacques Callot also spent time in Rome, which was a source of emulation for him.

The United Kingdom was also a place of practice for French engravers, particularly London. This is the case, for example, of Pierre Lombart, a burinist and aquafortist born around 1612-1613. There is no tangible information about his training, but it is possible to trace him back to 1640, when he was an engraver in the rue Saint Jacques. He produced burins of religious images, book frontispieces and portraits. In 1649, he was in London, perhaps to buy paintings for Cardinal Mazarin. He then continued his activity as an engraver overseas and began an intense production of illustrations as well as imitation portrait engravings. He returned to Paris in 1663, where he produced many portraits, and in 1673 he was admitted to the Académie royale de peinture et sculpture.

But London was also a place of refuge for Protestant engravers, banished from the kingdom by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. This was the case, for example, of Louis Chéron, a painter, illustrator and engraver born in Paris in 1655 into a Protestant family of engravers. Trained by his father and then at the Académie Royale, he twice won the First Prix de Rome for painting in 1676 and 1678. However, when Protestantism was banned in France, he emigrated to London. It is possible to trace him in British archives from 1693. In 1710, he became a British citizen.

Under the rule of Louis XIV, there was a real political will to make Paris the European capital of printmaking. This was reflected in the allocation of pensions and accommodation to which foreign engravers were entitled, in the same way as French engravers. What's more, prohibiting the engraving of objects from the king's collection without prior authorisation led to a competition for engravers in the capital. .

Publisher
Editors are the people in charge of a print project, from engraving to printing and distribution. It is the editor who coordinates the various trades involved in the project (and who sometimes carries out certain stages himself).

In the 17th century, there were real publishing dynasties. For example, Madeleine de Collemont married successively François Langlois dit Chartres and Pierre II Mariette. Her sons would become the two most powerful publishers of their time: Nicolas I Langlois and Jean Mariette.

As the reputation of French prints grew throughout the 17th century, publishers set up large sales outlets and sold thousands of prints abroad.

In some cases, such as popular engraving, the name of the publisher may be better known than that of the engraver, which is not indicated

List of 17th century engravers
Abraham Bosse (1602 or 1604 - 1676), burinist and aquafortist, he is best known for his scientific and architectural prints.

Claude Mellan (1598 - 1688), distinguished by his great mastery of the burin.

François Chauveau (1613 - 1676) devoted himself mainly to the illustration of printed books, both religious and secular, and collaborated with many authors who were his contemporaries.

Jacques Bellange (1575 - 1616), an aquafortist and painter from Lorraine, his work included portraits and grotesques in the Baroque style.

Jacques Callot (1592 - 1635), a prolific engraver from Lorraine, is considered to be one of the masters of etching.

Jacques Dassonville (1619 - 1670), an aquafortist, his works often depict people from the working classes or the marginalised.

Claude Goyrand (1610-1662), draughtsman, painter and engraver of views and perspectives of Paris and its surroundings.

Jean Lepautre (1618 - 1682), engraver of ornaments and models, he was greatly influenced by Italy.

Robert Nanteuil (1623 - 1678) was an engraver and pastellist whose work consisted mainly of portraits.

Sébastien Leclerc (1637 - 1714), originally from Lorraine, was also trained as an engineer and placed great emphasis on geometry in his prints.

List of 17th century publishers
the Poillys (François de Poilly), whose production focused mainly on engravings after the masters, portraits and almanacs.

the Bonnarts (Henri Bonnart, Nicolas Bonnart...), who specialised in fashion engravings.

the Landrys (Pierre Landry), known for their monumental prints.

Jacques Lagniet (circa 1600 or 1620 - 1675) was the leading publisher of popular prints in the 17th century.

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