Jean-Baptiste Le Prince

Jean-Baptiste Le Prince (September 17, 1734 – September 30, 1781) was an important French etcher and painter. Le Prince first studied painting techniques in his native

Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand E ...

. He then travelled to Paris around 1750 and became a leading student of the great painter,

François Boucher François Boucher ( , ; ; 29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories ...

(1703–1770). Le Prince's early paintings in both theme and style are comparable to his master's

rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

techniques. He was the half-brother of French author

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (; 26 April 17118 September 1780) was a French novelist who wrote the best known version of ''Beauty and the Beast''. Her third husband was the French spy Thomas Pichon (1757–1760). Life and work Christened Ma ...

. In 1758 Le Prince journeyed to Russia to work for

Catherine the Great , en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes , house = , father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp , birth_date = , birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anhal ...

at the Imperial Palace,

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. He remained in Russia for five years and also travelled extensively throughout Finland,

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

and even

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

. When Le Prince returned to Paris in December, 1763, he brought with him an extensive collection of drawings which he employed as the basis for a number of fine paintings and etchings. J. B. Le Prince was elected a full member of the ''

Académie de peinture et de sculpture An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...

'' in 1765. Le Prince's graphic art of Russia and its peoples is significant in that he based his compositions entirely upon his own designs, lending a much more realistic portrayal to his views than other eighteenth century contemporaries. He is also credited with being the first artist (in 1768) to introduce

aquatint Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching that produces areas of tone rather than lines. For this reason it has mostly been used in conjunction with etching, to give both lines and shaded tone. It has also been used h ...

into his etched and engraved plates. He may even have been the inventor of

, the tonal graphic art that would later be so skillfully used by such masters as

Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and ...

, Louis-Philibert Debucourt,

Delacroix Delacroix is a French surname that derives from ''de la Croix'' ("of the Cross"). It may refer to: People * Caroline Delacroix (1883–1945), French-Romanian mistress of Leopold II of Belgium * Charles-François Delacroix (1741–1805), ...

and

Thomas Rowlandson Thomas Rowlandson (; 13 July 175721 April 1827) was an English artist and caricaturist of the Georgian Era, noted for his political satire and social observation. A prolific artist and printmaker, Rowlandson produced both individual social an ...

. 1734 births Artists from Metz 1781 deaths French etchers 18th-century French painters French male painters 18th-century French male artists {{France-painter-18thC-stub