Pancrace Bessa (1 January 1772 – 11 June 1846) was a French natural history artist, best known for his botanical illustrations. Bessa was a student of the great engraver

Gerard van Spaendonck Gerard van Spaendonck (22 March 1746 – 11 May 1822) was a Dutch painter. Life Gerard was born in Tilburg, an older brother of Cornelis van Spaendonck (1756–1840), who was also an accomplished artist. In the 1760s he studied with decorative p ...

and worked alongside Pierre-Joseph Redouté, some of whose influence shows in Bessa's detailed and delicate treatment of his subjects. He was a regular exhibitor at the Paris Salons between 1806 and 1831. Bessa's favourite subjects were fruit and flowers, with occasional digressions to birds and mammals. In 1816, the Duchesse de Berry, daughter-in-law of

King Charles X of France Charles X (born Charles Philippe, Count of Artois; 9 October 1757 – 6 November 1836) was King of France from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. An uncle of the uncrowned Louis XVII and younger brother to reigning kings Louis XVI and Loui ...

, extended her patronage to him, which led to his giving painting lessons to the de Berry family. Their art connections went back to the '' Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry''. Bessa also worked on the French royal watercolour collection on vellum the ''Velins du Roi'' from 1823 until his death. In the early nineteenth century, Bessa, Redouté, Jean-Louis Prévost,

Lancelot-Théodore Turpin de Crissé Lancelot-Théodore, Comte de Turpin de Crissé (9 July 1782, in Paris – 15 May 1859, in Paris) was a French writer and painter. His most familiar works are landscapes with structures, usually set in Italy. Biography His father was Colonel ...

, and Madame Vincent raised France to pre-eminence in the genre of botanical painting. Bessa developed a masterful use of

stipple engraving Stipple engraving is a technique used to create tone in an intaglio print by distributing a pattern of dots of various sizes and densities across the image. The pattern is created on the printing plate either in engraving by gouging out the dots ...

technique, an essential part of colour printing. Bessa and Redoute collaborated on the ''Histoire des Arbres Forestiers de L'Amerique Septentrionale'', which appeared between 1810 and 1813. He prepared some 572 watercolours for ''L'Herbier Général de L'Amateur'' by Mordant de Launey and Loiseleur Longchamp, which appeared between 1810 and 1826.Google Books
/ref> ''Description des Plantes cultivees a Malmaison a Navarre'' used 9 of Bessa's illustrations and 54 by Redouté. Bessa’s final work was ''Flore des Jardiniers'', published in 1836.

Notes

Gallery

External links

Pancrace Bessa and the Golden Age of French Botanical Illustration at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bessa, Pancrace 1772 births 1846 deaths Botanical illustrators 19th-century French botanists