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Gilles Demarteau 1722-1776 French 2 Etchings

Currency:USD Category:Antiques Start Price:50.00 USD Estimated At:200.00 - 400.00 USD
Gilles Demarteau 1722-1776 French 2 Etchings
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Etching print on paper, framed, featuring 2 pieces of beauties in forest, No 345, 346, originally engraved by Gilles Demarteau (1722-1776, French). The top of verso inscribed T2729-C48. 27 x 22 cm (10.6 x 8.7 inches), Frame: 37 x 32 cm (14.6 x 12.6 inches). PROVENANCE: Private collection (Chicaco, United States).

Gilles Demarteau (Flemish, 1722–1776) was mainly a reproductive artist who worked in the new crayon manner style which he had helped to invent. His oeuvre comprises about 560 numbered plates.His first known works were made using the etching technique and the burin and were made for book and music publishers. He also made illustrations of La Fontaine's Fables.His reproductive works were mainly made after the works of Charles-André van Loo, Jean-Baptiste Huet, Charles-Nicolas Cochin, Antoine Watteau and most frequently François Boucher. Half of his works were made after drawings by François Boucher or after drawings owned by collectors such as the family Blondel d’Azincourt. Painters of the 18th century were accustomed, before beginning a painting, to make sketches in sanguine. They regularly executed these sketches with pencils of different colors. The crayon manner of engraving allowed engravers like Gilles Demarteau to produce faithful reproductions of these designs. These prints in red ink so much resembled red chalk drawings that they could be framed as little pictures. They could then be hung in the small blank spaces of the elaborately decorated paneling of homes.