Engraving: Its Origin, Processes, and History

by comte Henri Delaborde

Once, it is true, at the most brilliant period of English engraving, the French school was not without a moment of hesitation on the part of some, of disloyalty on that of others. During the First Empire, the existence of the art movement in London in the last years of the active rule of George III. and the beginning of the Regency was unsuspected in France. The cessation of commercial relations between the two countries left the French in such complete ignorance that, until 1816, the only English prints they knew were those by Strange, Ryland, and Woollett: those, in fact, published before the end of the eighteenth century. And when, after the Restoration, English work first came under the eyes of French engravers, the fascination of its novelty dazzled them more than the splendour of its merit.

Those who, like Tardieu and Desnoyers, were especially concerned with loftiness of style and masculine vigour of execution, were but little moved by such innovations, if we may judge by the nature of their subsequent publications. The "Ruth and Boaz," engraved by the former after Hersent, the divers "Madonnas" and the "Transfiguration," engraved by the latter after Raphael, do not testify that their belief in the excellence of the old French method was at all shaken. But others, either younger or less stable of conviction, were soon seduced. Like the English engravers, they attempted to unite all the different processes of engraving in their plates; and they sought, to the exclusion of all besides, the easiest way of work, piquancy of result, and prettiness everywhere, even in history. These imitations became more numerous by reason of their first success, till they threatened the independence of French engraving, which had not been encroached upon since the seventeenth century.

The fever, however, soon cooled. A happy reaction set in soon after 1830, and continued during the following years; and infatuation having everywhere been succeeded by reflection, the misleading qualities of the English manner were finally recognised. The French school takes counsel with none save itself, its past, and its traditions. To this just confidence in its own resources are owing its present superiority to, and independence of, other schools, and, what is more important still, its place apart from that mechanical industry which, with its spurious successes, its raids upon a territory not its own, and its pretentious efforts to occupy the place of art, would seize upon those privileges, which, do all it may, it can never hope to confiscate.

Of all the engravers who have honoured our epoch not in France alone, but also in other countries, the first in genius, as in the general influence he has exerted for nearly half a century, is certainly Henriquel—as he called himself in the early part of his career—Henriquel-Dupont in the second half. But he too, it would seem, had his hours of indecision. Perhaps, in some of his early works, certain traces may be discovered of a leaning towards the English manner, certain tendencies of doubtful orthodoxy; but, at any rate, they have never developed into manifest errors: they have, at the most, resulted in venial sins, which themselves have been abundantly atoned.

Fig. 96.—HENRIQUEL.

Cromwell (Etching). After Paul Delaroche.

Henriquel is a master in the widest acceptation of the word: a master, too, of the stamp of those in the past of whom the French have the greatest right to be proud. The masters of the seventeenth century have scarcely left us plates at once so largely and so delicately treated, as his "Hémicycle du Palais des Beaux-Arts," his "Moïse Exposé sur le Nil," and his "Strafford," after Paul Delaroche; his admirable sketch in etching of the "Pilgrims of Emmaus," after Veronese; and the portrait of M. Bertin, after Ingres; and these are but a few. We have, besides the Van Dyck, "Une Dame et sa Fille," engraved some years before the "Abdication de Gustave Wasa," after Hersent, and the "Marquis de Pastoret," after Paul Delaroche; the "Christ Consolateur," engraved rather later, after Scheffer; and, among less important, though certainly not less meritorious works, the portraits engraved now with the scientific ease of the burin, now with the light and delicate touch of the needle: the "Pasta," the botanist "Desfontaines," "Desenne" the draughtsman, the "Brongniart," the "Tardieu," the "Carle Vernet," the "Sauvageot," the "Scheffer," the "Mansard et Perrault," the "Mirabeau à la Tribune," the "Rathier," and, latest of all, the charming little "Père Petétot."

Fig. 97.—HENRIQUEL.