The Drevet Family were leading portrait engravers of France for over a hundred years. Their fame began with Pierre, and was sustained by his son, Pierre-Imbert, and by his nephew, Claude.

Pierre Drevet

Pierre Drevet, the Elder (1663–1738) was born at Loire

Loire

Loire is an administrative department in the east-central part of France occupying the River Loire's upper reaches.-History:Loire was created in 1793 when after just 3½ years the young Rhône-et-Loire department was split into two. This was a response to counter-Revolutionary activities in Lyon...

 in the Lyonnais

Lyonnais

The Lyonnais is a historical province of France which owes its name to the city of Lyon.The geographical area known as the Lyonnais became part of the Kingdom of Burgundy after the division of the Carolingian Empire...

, the son of Estienne Drevet, and began his studies with Germain Audran

Germain Audran

Germain Audran, who was born at Lyons in 1631, was instructed by his uncle Charles in the art of engraving in Paris. He died at Lyons in 1710. His merit was considerable, although very inferior to that of some others of his family. Germain had four sons, Claude III, Benoit I, Jean, and Louis...

 in Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

s, continuing them with Gérard Audran

Gérard Audran

Gérard Audran , was a French engraver of the Audran family, the third son of Claude Audran....

 in Paris. His progress was rapid, and in 1696 he was made court engraver. In 1707 he was admitted to membership in the Académie des Beaux-Arts

Académie des beaux-arts

The Académie des Beaux-Arts is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France.It was created in 1795 as the merger of the:* Académie de peinture et de sculpture...

, his reception picture being an engraving of Robert de Cotte

Robert de Cotte

Robert de Cotte was a French architect-administrator, under whose design control of the royal buildings of France from 1699, the earliest notes presaging the Rococo style were introduced. First a pupil of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, he later became his brother-in-law and his collaborator...

.

Hyacinthe Rigaud

Hyacinthe Rigaud

Hyacinthe Rigaud was a French baroque painter of Catalan origin whose career was based in Paris.He is renowned for his portrait paintings of Louis XIV, the royalty and nobility of Europe, and members of their courts and considered one of the most notable French portraitists of the classical period...

's portraits were in high favour at the end of the seventeenth century and Drevet was the first to encounter the difficulties of translating into black and white the natural appearance of texture and materials in the latter's oil paintings. Always engraving after oil-paintings, Drevet was at times uneven, but this was arguably because the originals were uneven. His engravings were mainly the portraits of distinguished people. Among his many plates are a portrait of Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing...

 (1700); portraits of Louis XIV and Louis XV, both after Rigaud; a Crucifixion, after Coypel, and a portrait of Charles II of England

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

. During the last years of his life Drevet worked with his son and they produced plates together. He died in Paris.

Pierre-Imbert Drevet

Pierre-Imbert Drevet (22 June 1697 – 27 April 1739), called the Younger Pierre, was born and died in Paris. His father, the elder Drevet, instructed him, and he was engraving at the age of thirteen. At first he engraved after Charles Lebrun, but he soon developed a style of his own. He was his father's constant companion. In 1723 Pierre-Imbert finished his portrait of Bossuet

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet was a French bishop and theologian, renowned for his sermons and other addresses. He has been considered by many to be one of the most brilliant orators of all time and a masterly French stylist....

 after Rigaud. In 1724 the portrait of Cardinal Dubois

Guillaume Dubois

Guillaume Dubois was a French cardinal and statesman.-Early years:Dubois, the third of the four great Cardinal-Ministers , was born in Brive-la-Gaillarde, in Limousin...

 was engraved; in 1730, a plate of Adrienne Lecouvreur

Adrienne Lecouvreur

Adrienne Lecouvreur was a French actress.Born in Damery, she first appeared professionally on the stage in Lille...

. For his engraving of Samuel Bernard

Samuel Bernard

Samuel Bernard , Count of Coubert , was a French financier.-Life:Of Dutch origin, Samuel Bernard was the son of the painter and engraver Samuel-Jacques Bernard...

, Rigaud himself made the drawing, an unusual event in eighteenth-century engraving. Besides his portraits, Pierre-Imbert produced many religious and historical plates, chiefly of Coypel. A sunstroke (1726) resulted in intermittent mental disability, which continued for thirteen years until his death. He kept on engraving until the end. He was a member of the Académie de Peinture and the king assigned him apartments in the Louvre

Louvre

The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

. Among his pupils were artists François

François Chereau

François Cheréau, also known as François I Cheréau was an engraver of portraits and reproductions of famous works of art during the reign of Louis XIV.-Early Life:...

 and Jacques Chéreau

Jacques Chereau

Jacques Chéreau was a portrait engraver, printmaker and publisher of optical prints in a neighborhood of printmakers at the Rue Saint-Jacques variously given on prints as "au Grand St. Remy," "au Coq," or "au dessus de la Fontaine St...

 and Simon Vallée.

His principal works were: Presentation of the Virgin, after Le Brun; Presentation in the Temple, after L. Boullogne; portraits of the Archbishop of Cambrai

Cambrai

Cambrai is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.Cambrai is the seat of an archdiocese whose jurisdiction was immense during the Middle Ages. The territory of the Bishopric of Cambrai, roughly coinciding with the shire of Brabant, included...

 (after Joseph Vivien); and René Pucelle, his last work, after Rigaud.

Claude Drevet

A French engraver, b. Lyons, 1705; d. in Paris, 1782. He was a nephew and pupil of Pierre the Elder and at first followed the traditions of the two Pierres, forming about him a coterie of engravers who endeavoured to keep alive their traditions. When Pierre-Imbert died, his rooms in the Louvre were given to Claude, who reportedly proceeded to squander nearly all the money left him by his uncle and his cousin. He engraved portraits of Henri Oswald, Cardinal d'Auvergne, after Rigaud, and of Charles-Gaspard-Guillaume de Vintimille du Luc

Charles-Gaspard-Guillaume de Vintimille du Luc

Charles-Gaspard-Guillaume de Vintimille du Luc was Bishop of Marseilles from 1692 to 1708 and Archbishop of Aix from 1708 to 1729; from 1729 to 1746 he was the Archbishop of Paris.-Biography:...

, Archbishop of Paris

Archbishop of Paris

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Paris is one of twenty-three archdioceses of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The original diocese is traditionally thought to have been created in the 3rd century by St. Denis and corresponded with the Civitas Parisiorum; it was elevated to an archdiocese on...

, also after Rigaud.

Sources

Attribution cites

• • FIRMIN-DIDOT, Les Drevet (Paris, 1876);
  • LIPPMAN, Engraving and Etching (New York, 1906);
  • PERNETTY, Les Lyonnais dignes de mémoire, II, 139.

External links

• Pierre-Imbert Drevet on Artnet
• Pierre-Imbert on French Wikipedia
• Pierre the Elder on French Wikipedia