Such are illustrative instances from Germany, Italy, and Holland. As yet, power rather than beauty presided, unless in the etchings of Van Dyck. But the reign of Louis the Fourteenth was beginning to assert a supremacy in engraving as in literature. The great school of French engravers which appeared at this time brought the art to a splendid perfection, which many think has not been equalled since; so that Masson, Nanteuil, Edelinck, and Drevet may claim fellowship in genius with their immortal contemporaries, Corneille, Racine, La Fontaine, and Molière.
The school was opened by Claude Mellan, more known as engraver than painter, and also author of most of the designs he engraved. His life, beginning with the sixteenth century, was protracted to nearly ninety years, not without signal honor; for his name appears among the “Illustrious Men” of France, in the beautiful volumes of Perrault, which is also a homage to the art he practised. One of his works, for a long time much admired, was described by this author:—
“It is a head of Christ, designed and shaded with his crown of thorns, and the blood that trickles on all sides, by one single stroke, which, beginning at the tip of the nose, and continuing always in a curve, forms very exactly all that is represented in the plate, merely by the different thickness of this stroke, which, according as it is more or less broad, makes the eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, hair, blood, and thorns; the whole so well represented, and with such expression of pain and affliction, that nothing is more sad or more touching.”[155]
This print is known as The Sudarium of Saint Veronica. Longhi records that it was thought at the time “inimitable,” and was “praised to the skies,”—adding, “But people think differently now.”[156] At best it is a curiosity among portraits. A traveller reported some time ago that it was the sole print on the walls of the room occupied by the Director of the Imperial Cabinet of Engravings at St. Petersburg.
Morin was a contemporary of Mellan, and less famous at the time. His style of engraving was peculiar, being a mixture of strokes and dots, but so harmonized as to produce a pleasing effect. One of the best engraved portraits in the history of the art is his Cardinal Bentivoglio; but here he translated Van Dyck, whose picture is among his best. A fine impression of this print is a choice possession.
Among French masters Antoine Masson is conspicuous for brilliant hardihood of style, which, though failing in taste, is powerful in effect. Metal, armor, velvet, feather, seem as if painted. He is also most successful in the treatment of hair. His immense skill made him welcome difficulties, as if to show his ability in overcoming them. His print of Henri de Lorraine, Comte d’Harcourt, known as Cadet à la Perle, from the pearl in the ear, with the date 1667, is often placed at the head of engraved portraits, although not particularly pleasing or interesting. The vigorous countenance is aided by the gleam and sheen of the various substances entering into the costume. Less powerful, but having a charm of its own, is that of Brisacier, known as The Gray-Haired Man, engraved in 1664. The remarkable representation of hair in this print has been a model for artists, especially for Longhi, who recounts that he copied it in his head of Washington.[157] Somewhat similar is the head of Charrier, the Criminal Judge at Lyons. Though inferior in hair, it surpasses the other in expression.
Nanteuil was an artist of different character, being to Masson as Van Dyck to Visscher, with less of vigor than beauty. His original genius was refined by classical studies and quickened by diligence. Though dying at the age of forty-eight, he had executed as many as two hundred and eighty plates, nearly all portraits. The favor he enjoyed during life has not diminished with time. His works illustrate the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, and are still admired. Among these are portraits of the King, Anne of Austria, Johan Baptist van Steenberghen, called The Advocate of Holland, a Heavy Dutchman, François de la Mothe-Le-Vayer, a fine and delicate work, Turenne, Colbert, Lamoignon, the poet Loret, Maridat de Serrière, Louise-Marie de Gonzague, Louis Hesselin, Christina of Sweden,—all masterpieces; but above these is the Pomponne de Bellièvre, foremost among his masterpieces, and a chief masterpiece of Art, being, in the judgment of more than one connoisseur, the most beautiful engraved portrait that exists. That excellent authority Dr. Thies, who knew engraving more thoroughly and sympathetically than any person I remember in our country, said, in a letter to myself, as long ago as March, 1858,—
“When I call Nanteuil’s Pomponne the handsomest engraved portrait, I express a conviction to which I came when I studied all the remarkable engraved portraits at the royal cabinet of engravings in Dresden, and at the large and exquisite collection there of the late King of Saxony, and in which I was confirmed, or perhaps to which I was led, by the director of the two establishments, the late Professor Frenzel.”