Engraving: Its Origin, Processes, and History

by comte Henri Delaborde

If the "Turenne," the "Président de Bellièvre," the "Van Steenberghen" (called the "Avocat de Hollande"), the "Pierre de Maridat," the "Lamothe Le Vayer," the "Loret," and others, are masterpieces of refinement in expression and drawing, they also prove, as regards execution, the exquisite taste and the marvellous dexterity of the engraver. But to discern the variety of method they display, and to perceive that the handling is as sure and fertile as it is learned and unpretentious, they must be closely studied.

As a rule, Nanteuil employs in his half-lights dots arranged at varying distances, according to the force of colouring required, in combination with short strokes of exceeding fineness. Sometimes—as, for instance, in the "Christine de Suède," altogether engraved in this manner—the process suffices him not only to model such parts as verge upon his lights, but even to construct the masses of his shadows. The "Edouard Molé" is, on the contrary, in pure line. The soft silkiness of hair he often expresses by free and flowing lines, some of which, breaking away from the principal mass, are relieved against the background, breaking the monotony of the workmanship, and suggesting movement by their vagueness of contour. Often, too, certain loose lines, either broken or continued without crossing in different directions, admirably distinguish the natures of certain substances, and imitate to perfection the soft richness of furs or the sheen of satin. Yet it sometimes happens that in the master's hand the same method results in the most opposite effects: a print, for instance, may exemplify in its treatment of the textures of flesh a method applied elsewhere, and with equal success, to the rendering of draperies. In a word, Nanteuil does not appropriate any particular process to any predetermined purpose. While judiciously subordinating each to propriety, he can, when he pleases, make the most of all; and whatever path he follows, it always appears that he has taken the best to reach his end.

It was not only to the teaching of Nanteuil that Edelinck had recourse; he still further improved his style by studying his countryman, Nicolas Pitau (whom Colbert had also summoned from Antwerp to the Gobelins), and afterwards by acquiring the secret of brilliant handling from François de Poilly. To which of these engravers he was most indebted is a point which cannot be exactly determined. After investing himself with qualities from each, he did not imitate one more than another; he found his inspiration in the examples of all three.

Nanteuil and Edelinck, first united by their work, were soon fast friends, in spite of the difference of their ages, and the still greater difference of their tastes. The French engraver sent for his wife from Rheims as soon as he found himself in a fair way to success and fortune; but he had also in some degree returned to the habits of his youth. A shining light in society, and as intimate with the cultured set at Mlle. de Scudéry's as with the devotees of pleasures less strictly intellectual, his career of dissipation in the salons and fashionable taverns of the day contrasts strangely with the sober quality of his talent, and increases our surprise at the number of works which he produced. Even his declining health did not change his habits. Till the end he continued to divide his time between his work and the world; and at his death, in 1678, at the age of fifty-two, he left nothing, or almost nothing, to his wife, in spite of the large sums he had made since he came to Paris.

Fig. 84.—JEAN PESNE.

Nicolas Poussin.

Edelinck's fate was very different. He lived in seclusion, given over to his art and to the one ambition of becoming churchwarden (marguillier) of his parish: a position refused him, it is said, as reserved for tradesmen and official personages, and with which he was only at length invested by the condescending interference of the king. It was probably the only favour personally solicited by Edelinck, but it was by no means the first he owed to the protection of Louis XIV. Before the churchwardenship he held the title of "Premier Dessinateur du Cabinet." Like Lebrun, like Mansart and Le Nôtre, he was a Knight of St. Michael and the Academy of Painting elected him as one of its council. His old age, like the rest of his days, was quiet and laborious; and when he died (1707) his two brothers and his son Nicolas, who had all three been his pupils, inherited a fortune as wisely husbanded as it had been honourably acquired.

Edelinck survived the principal engravers of the reign of Louis XIV. François de Poilly, Roullet, Masson, and Jean Pesne, had more or less closely followed Nanteuil to the grave. At the Gobelins, once so rich in ability of the first order, students had taken the place of masters, and clever craftsmen succeeded to artists of genuine inspiration. Van Schuppen had followed Nanteuil, as Mignard had Lebrun, from necessity rather than right. And last of all, Gérard Audran, the most distinguished engraver of the time—whom, for the sake of clearness in our narrative, we have not yet mentioned—had died in 1703; and though members of his family did honour to the name he had distinguished, none of them were able to sustain the full weight of its glory.