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- Bernard Picart
- Also known as
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Bernard Picart
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primary name: Picart, Bernard
- Details
- individual; printmaker; publisher/printer; French; Dutch; Male
- Life dates
- 1673-1733
- Address
- Rue St Jacques, au Buste de Monseigneur, Paris
- Biography
- Engraver, son of Etienne who was sometimes called 'Picart le Romain'; specialised in book illustration, in which he was a major figure with a large output. Trained in Paris but worked in Netherlands in September 1696 - December 1698. Married in Paris 1702 with four children. After death of wife and children turned Huguenot, and left definitively for Holland in January 1710, taking his aged father with him. Settled initially in The Hague, then in 1711 in Amsterdam, where remarried in 1712. His wife henceforth acted as his agent in sales, and was notorious for the high prices she charged and for getting proofs of all his book illustrations from their publishers (see Gersaint in the Lorangère catalogue, 1744).
Published some prints at the same address as his father, therefore a confusion between the two is possible. Published prints by Dirk Maas.
- Bibliography
- 'Impostures Innocents' was published posthumously in 1735 with a biography by his wife, a discourse on engraving by himself (reprinted in 'Nouvelles de l'Estampe' no.10, 1973, pp.15-20), and at the end a list of his work compiled by his wife (text kept in box with the 'Impostures').
The catalogue is reprinted by J.Duportal in L.Dimier, 'Peintres français du XVIIIe siècle', 1928, and remains the only available modern catalogue of his output. There are said to be catalogues produced by Picart himself in 1710, 1715, 1721, as well as by his widow after his death (see Sc D.1.2). There were posthumous sales of his drawings and prints in Amsterdam in 1737, and of his plates in Paris in 1738 (both are in Sc. D.1.2). Much material is in the Teylers Museum.
I.H. van Eeghen, 'De Amsterdamse Boekhandel 1680-1725', Amsterdam, I pp.11-13, (letters from J.C de Lorme to Bernard Picart)
Jon Whiteley on Picart's engravings of Stosch's gems, in Martin Henig & D.Plantzos (eds), Gertrude Seidmann Festschrift, Oxford 1999, pp.183-190.