This statement is not entirely true, but it is probable that Jackson’s woodcuts, more broadly executed than the typical French products, outlasted all others of the 1725-30 period. They were consistently re-used, and appeared, as far as they can be traced, well into the 1780’s.[19]

Elsewhere in the Traité, however, Papillon has a good word for Jackson’s abilities:[20]

Jackson, of whom I have already spoken, also engraved in chiaroscuro; I have a little landscape by him which is very nicely done.

It was inevitable that Papillon and Jackson should clash. The Frenchman’s notion of woodcutting was influenced, as we have seen, by copper plate engraving; he wanted, by incredible minuteness of cutting, to achieve approximately the same results. This was in keeping with the delicate French rocaille tradition on which Papillon was nurtured; to him any other contemporary style of book decoration was evidence of bad taste. Jackson, on his part, felt that this approach violated the essentially broad, vigorous nature of the woodcut and, in addition, made excessive demands on the printer. Since this impoverished beginner, and an Englishman at that, refused to take his earnest advice or to fall into the prevailing style, Papillon was enraged. After all, Jackson was working as an employee. But Papillon was not entirely blind. In a number of places in the Traité he made reference to other woodcutters who were working in Jackson’s style, and he recorded some of the works the Englishman illustrated during his five years in Paris.

Headpiece by J. M. Papillon for his Traité historique et pratique de la gravure en bois, Paris, 1766, vol. 3. This is an example of Papillon’s minute style, against which Jackson rebelled. Actual size. [Enlarged view.]

Jackson’s blossoming out as a maker of wallpaper after his return to England and his brash claims in this connection in the Essay, must also have irked Papillon, who knew the field as an expert; his father in 1688 had set up the first large printing house in France for wall hangings, and after his death in 1723 Papillon had inherited it. In 1740, he sold the business to the widow Langlois, but he had run the shop during Jackson’s residence in Paris and his former employee no doubt had learned a great deal by observing its operation. Yet here more than twenty years later was the upstart Englishman again, venturing into wallpaper manufacturing with an air of moral superiority, attacking all other products as unworthy. Jackson’s ridiculing of the Chinese style must have been particularly galling since

Papillon and his father had specialized in producing such papers. These were much better than comparable English work, but Jackson, confining himself to English products, had attacked the whole style without making distinctions.

According to the Enquiry (pages 32-55 of this book will be drawn upon for the ensuing details of Jackson’s career), M. Annison, Director of the Imprimerie Royale, for whom Jackson produced many cuts, introduced him to Count de Caylus, collector, connoisseur, etcher, and the leading spirit in French engraving at the time. De Caylus had, in 1725, undertaken to direct the reproduction of drawings and paintings in the best French collections.[21] Pierre Crozat, the famous collector, sponsored the publication of this ambitious work.