CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| The Life of Choffard | [9] |
| The Art of Choffard | [19] |
| Catalogue of the Best-known Books Illustrated by Choffard | [37] |
| Addenda to Catalogue of Books | [97] |
| List of Illustrations | [101] |
| Index of the Works mentioned in the Catalogue of Books illustrated by Choffard | [107] |
| Plates | [115] |
THE LIFE OF CHOFFARD
So little is known concerning Pierre-Philippe Choffard himself, that it is difficult to give many facts about his life or even to state with confidence that the year 1730 is that of the great artist’s birth, since Heinecken gives 1729 and other writers mention 1736 as being the date.
Pierre-Philippe’s artistic talent was perceptible at a very early age, for when his father died, leaving wife and child impecunious, we hear that the little boy of ten was in the habit of amusing himself by making floral and conventional designs on the margins of his books, or more probably exercise-books, considering his parents had, evidently, never possessed large means and all literature was somewhat costly in those days. The widow, at that time, suffered business losses which caused her to take young Choffard away from the school he attended, and she wisely placed him in the studio of Dheulland who was an engraver of maps, plans, and other geometrical drawings. No doubt the rising genius found this kind of engraving very wearisome, and to make his work more congenial, he ornamented the borders, in which the maps were framed, with his own unique designs.
The boy is also said to have been aided by lessons from Nicolas Edelinck, who was very old; also from Balechou and Cochin; or, may be, the example of these artists’ works emulated the youth. While yet juvenile Choffard received tuition from Babel, an engraver of decorative ornamentation. Pierre-Philippe’s style and charm of drawing, however, were formed by himself alone, and no master before or since his time has excelled Choffard in the airy atmospheric vitality he imparts into all his magic pencil has chosen to portray, either in the realms of fantasy, in the realities of still life, or even in the rendering of that which his colleagues designed.
The artist must have had as much charm of personality as his achievements had of originality; indeed, it is remarkable to find that whenever his name appears, in memoirs or elsewhere, only good epithets are applied to this self-made artist, who had no social standing and yet was appointed draughtsman and engraver to the Imperial court and to the Spanish throne, whilst the rulers of his native land appear to have given Choffard no post, although he was member of several academies.