Tory seems to have attempted in these plates to imitate Mantegna, whose work he may have studied in Italy; but he had the good sense to abandon this manner, which was not his own; or perhaps we should say that he did no more than follow designs which were supplied to him.
This is what M. Renouvier has to say on this subject:—
'The plates signed with a G surmounted by the Lorraine cross are of more importance. The Labours of Hercules, in twelve plates, are the work of no commonplace artist. The drawing assumes a masterly, even a rough, character, seeking effects in the play of muscles and of facial expression in imitation of Mantegna and Albrecht Dürer; the cutting follows up the effect of the burin. Bartsch mentioned them among the old German masters, and the monogrammatists wavered between Jean Schoorel, Georges Scharfenberg, Giuseppe Scolari, etc.; their French origin was not suspected until some proofs were found on which the engravings were accompanied by French quatrains. Then, when the same mark was found on a plate used as a frontispiece to Pierre Gringoire's "Blazon des Hérétiques" (1524), and on several vignettes in the Hours rendered into verse, by the same poet, it was attempted to make a wood-engraver of Gringoire, who was a Lorrainer, herald-at-arms to Duc René II, and likely enough to display the cross of Lorraine over his initial. This much is certain: that the mark consisting of a G with the cross of Lorraine is found also on the plates of a Lorraine book—"Duc Anthoine's Victory over the Lutherans"—published by his secretary Volcyr, who paid the expenses of the publication, "being unable to find any bookseller who was willing to undertake it, as well because of the portraits and cuts of the illustrations as of the printing hereof," and caused it to be issued, not in Lorraine, but in Paris, by Galliot Dupré, in 1526. It is to be noticed that this bookseller's mark, which represents a galliot, also has a Lorraine cross surmounting his cipher. Now, the attribution of these plates to Geofroy Tory is based upon some very ingenious comparisons of marks; the style of the engravings places no insurmountable obstacle in the way of such attribution, but it must be admitted that the engraver was led very far astray from his earlier works by his imitation of the German manner. It is possible, because French engraving, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, was pulled in four directions at once, so to speak, by national habit, by Flemish taste, by German mania, and by Italian charm. M. Bernard would give the fullest sanction to this second attribution if he could find any evidence of a journey of Tory's to Alsace or Lorraine of a later date than his journey to Italy; the importation of woodcuts from those provinces, then a common occurrence, would indeed suffice, so far as the common herd of our engravers is concerned, to explain this alteration in their manner. I will mention in a moment an example, also out of Lorraine, which must certainly have been known to Tory. Whatever the fact may be, the Labours of Hercules deserve an honourable place among the first attempts on a large scale of French engraving, beside the plates of Jean Duvet. The British Museum, like our Cabinet des Estampes, has acquired a set of them. Two of the plates in the latter set have the quatrains which are lacking in the corresponding ones in the Paris set; these are, the fifth: "The sly Archelaus 'gainst Hercules doth contend"; and the seventh: "The mighty Geryon, despicable tyrant," etc.'
1526
I. I have said that the floriated letters of Simon de Colines and Robert Estienne were engraved by Geofroy Tory. I cannot furnish material proof of the fact with regard to those of Colines; but I am about to produce incontestable evidence with regard to Estienne's. A letter in one of his alphabets is signed with the Lorraine cross, and that letter is the G, the initial of Tory's own name, or, as we say to-day, his first name (prénom). It is as if he had written 'Geofroy Tory' in full. But in this case, in opposition to what we find in the preceding engravings, the cross, instead of being above the G, is below it, and hidden as much as possible in order not to injure the design of the 'antique letter.' This circumstance proves not only that Tory was the engraver of Robert Estienne's floriated letters, but also that the double cross was that artist's mark.
