French
Engraving in the Crayon and Pastel
Manners
The
encyclopaedic approach characteristic of
mid-18th century French Enlightenment culture
found typical expression not only in the
first comprehensive catalogues raisonnés
of old master printmaking by Adam Bartsch
and the various publications of ‘receuils’ (collected
editions of prints issued in book form)
but also in new printmaking techniques
specifically invented to reproduce the
exact character and texture of chalk drawings
so they could be published in facsimile
to record the important French collections
then being built up.
The
plate was worked with a selection of roulettes (spiked
wheels) and mattoirs (spiked
punches) either directly into the copper
or through a soft etching ground (see
"soft-ground"),
giving a dotted granular line similar in
appearance and texture to a chalk line
on rough-grained drawing paper.
First
conceived by J.C.François (1717 – 1769)
who made only a few experiments, crayon
engraving was perfected and practised extensively
by Gilles Demarteau, working in Paris from
1746, and Louis Marin Bonnet. Boucher supplied
many of the chalk drawings which they took
as their models. It was probably Bonnet
who first extended the principle to multiple
plates. Two-crayon engravings (also see
“Colour
Intaglio Prints”)
were printed from two plates, one inked
in black and the other in sanguine, and
three-crayon engravings from three plates
in black, sanguine and white onto blue
paper, in successful emulation of sanguine
chalk drawings, and black & sanguine
chalk drawings with white highlights on
coloured paper.
Louis
Marin Bonnet (1736–1793): "The Fine
Musetioners".
Colour engraving in
the pastel manner, 1775, after Raourt.
(Here reproduced only in black and
white, as no colour illustration available.)
(Lettering in the lower border of this
example trimmed away.)
 |
|
Enlarged
detail from the corner of
Louis
Marin
Bonnet's "The Fine Musetioners".
One
of the ‘Estampes Angloises’,
with a gold,
brown and black printed
border. |
|
The
culmination was Bonnet’s development
of pastel engraving, a procedure which
could involve up to eight plates each printed
in a different tint, including a gold border,
to recreate the effect of a full colour
pastel drawing in a gold frame. Bonnet
made a series of ten prints with gold borders,
known as the ‘Estampes Angloises’ because
of their (sometimes misspelt) English titles
(see above and left). It
is speculated that Bonnet was avoiding
a tax on the use of gold by pretending
the prints were English imports. Also he
no doubt wished to exploit the then current
vogue in France for English prints.
The
fashion for crayon engraving , so closely
allied to the voluptuous rococo drawings
of the Ancien Regime, did not survive the
French Revolution. |
