Engraving: Its Origin, Processes, and History

by comte Henri Delaborde

The Marquis de Pastoret. After Paul Delaroche.

Fig. 98.—HENRIQUEL.

Alexander Brongniart. After a Drawing by the Engraver.

In these—and in how many besides? for the work of the master does not fall short of ninety pieces, besides lithographs and a great deal in pastel and crayon—Henriquel proves himself not only a trained draughtsman and finished executant, but, as it were, still more a painter than any of his immediate predecessors. Bervic—whose pupil he became, after some years in the studio of Pierre Guérin—was able to teach him to overcome the practical difficulties of the art, but the influence of the engraver of the "Laocoon" and the "Déjanire" went no further than technical initiation. Even the example of Desnoyers, however instructive in some respects, was not so obediently followed by Henriquel as to cause any sacrifice of taste and natural sentiment. By the clearness of his views, as much as by the elevation of his talent, the engraver of the "Hemicycle" is connected with the past French school and the masters who are its chief honour; but by the particular form of expression he employs, by a something extremely unexpected in his manner and extremely personal in his acceptance of tradition, he stands to a certain extent apart from his predecessors, and may be called an innovator, though he by no means advertises any such pretension. As we have just remarked, his use of means is so versatile that he paints with the graver or the needle, where just before him others, even the most skilful—men like Laugier and Richomme—could only engrave; and the influence he has exerted—whether by direct teaching, or by his signed work—has had the effect of rejuvenating engraving in France in more than one particular, and of awakening talents, some of which, though plainly betraying their origin, have none the less a weight and an importance of their own, and deserve an honourable place in the history of contemporary art.

Fig. 99.—HENRIQUEL.

Alexander Tardieu. After a Drawing by Ingres.

Several of his most distinguished pupils are dead: Aristide Louis, whose "Mignon," after Scheffer, won instant popularity; Jules François, who is to be credited, among other fine plates, with a real masterpiece in the "Militaire Offrant des Pièces d'Or à une Femme," after the Terburg in the Louvre; and Rousseaux, perhaps the most gifted engraver of his generation, whose works, few as they are, are yet enough to immortalise him. Who knows, indeed, if some day the "Portrait d'Homme" from the picture in the Louvre attributed to Francia, and the "Madame de Sévigné" from Nanteuil's pastel, may not be sought for with the eagerness now expended on the search for the old masters of engraving?

The premature death of these accomplished craftsmen has certainly been a loss to the French school. Fortunately, however, there remain many others whose work is of a nature to uphold the ancient renown of French art, and to defy comparison with the achievement of other countries. Where, save in France could equivalents be found, for instance, of the "Coronation of the Virgin," after Giovanni da Fiesole, and the "Marriage of Saint Catherine," after Memling, by Alphonse François; of the "Antiope," by Blanchard, after Correggio; of the "Vierge de la Consolation," after Hébert, by Huot; of Danguin's "Titian's Mistress," or Bertinot's "Portement de Croix," after Lesueur; of several other plates, remarkable in different ways, and bearing the same or other names? What rivalry need Gaillard fear, in the sort of engraving of which he is really the inventor, and which he practises with such extraordinary skill? Whether he produces after Van Eyck, Ingres, or Rembrandt, such plates as the "Homme à l'Œillet," the "Œdipus," and the "Pilgrims of Emmaus," or gives us, from his own drawings or paintings, such portraits as his "Pius IX." and his "Dom Guéranger," he, in every case, arrests the mind as well as surprises the eye, by the inconceivable subtlety of his work. Even when translating the works of others he shows himself boldly original. His methods are entirely his own, and render imitation impossible because they are prompted by the exceptional delicacy of his perceptions; but, with all the goodwill in the world, it would be no less difficult to appropriate his keenness of sentiment or to gain an equal degree of mental insight.