Description

Bernard PICART (1673-1733)

Bernard Picart : The underworld, 1730 

Original etching

Proof on laid paper, beautiful mythological etching of great finesse, captioned in French, English, German and Dutch.

Dimensions of the sheet : H. 460 mm x W. 300 mm – Dimensions of the plate mark : H. 355 mm x W. 255 mm.

Bernard Picart, born on June 11, 1673 in Paris where he lived rue Saint-Jacques, settled in 1711 in Amsterdam where he lived in the Kalverstraat and where he died on May 8, 1733, is a French draftsman and engraver (aquafortist and burinist). 

Trained by his father Étienne Picart (1632-1721), known as the Roman and by Benoît Audran le Vieux, then by Sébastien Leclerc in 1689, he made his first stay in Holland from 1696 to 1698. He soon made a brilliant reputation for himself as an engraver and draftsman. "He was the most remarkable representative of Dutch engraving in the first third of the 18th century, influenced by the French school. The repertoire of his considerable work has been carefully compiled by his widow." (source: Benezit).The General Catalogue of his work consists of over 1300 plates. Among the most famous, one will quote The perfumer, very famous scatological engraving, the portraits of his father, of Roger de Piles, of the prince Eugene, the Massacre of the Innocents. One will also quote his plates joined to the Treaty of the religious ceremonies of all the nations: the text of the original edition (Jean-Frédéric Bernard, Amsterdam, 1723-43, 11 vol. in-folio), written by Jean-Frédéric Bernard and Antoine-Augustin Bruzen de la Martinière.