Difference between revisions of "Bernard Picart"

<p> a famous French engraver, was born at [[Paris]] in 1673. He was the pupil of [[Le]] Clerc. His best works are those executed in France. Having embraced the [[Reformed]] religion, he took up his residence in Holland. In Amsterdam, to which place he accompanied his father in 1710, he worked exclusively for the booksellers, and became mannered, metallic, and merely ornamental. A great many of his prints are from his own designs, in which he imitated the style of composition of Antoine Coypel. He had a facility in imitating the styles of other earlier engravers, and he published many prints of this class which are said to have deceived collectors; Picart used to call them Impostures innocentes, and. they were publishled under this title, to the number of seventy-eight, with a list of his works (Amsterdam, 1738), after his death. His prints altogether amount to about 1300, and one of the best of them is a [[Slaughter]] of the Innocents, after a design of his own: there are various impressions of it. He died in 1733. The French text which Picart's copper-plates were intended to illustrate was [[Written]] by J.F. [[Bernard]] and Bruzen de la Martiniere. The first and best edition of the work in the original French is that of 1728-37; to which should be added Supplement (1743, 2 volumes), and Superstitions, Anciennes et Modemne (1733-36, 2 volumes). Picart is the author of a work on The [[Religious]] Ceremonies and Customs of the several [[Nations]] of the known World, represented in more than a hundred copper-plates, which he designed, and accompanied with historical explanations and several curious dissertations (Lond. 1731-39, 7 volumes, fol.). See Duplessis, Hist. de la Gravure en France; Haag Freres, La [[France]] Protestante, s.v.; Darling, Cyclop. Bibliogr. s.v.; English Cyclop. s.v. </p>