Per Gustaf Floding (3 March 1731 - 17 October 1791) was a Swedish designer and engraver. He was an instructor at the

Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts The Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts ( sv, Kungliga Akademien för de fria konsterna), commonly called the Royal Academy, is located in Stockholm, Sweden. An independent organization that promotes the development of painting, sculpture, architec ...

Biography

Floding was born at Stockholm, Sweden. He first trained under Swedish architect and engraver

Jean Eric Rehn Jean Eric Rehn (18 May 1717, Stockholm - 19 May 1793, Stockholm) was a Swedish architect, engraver and designer. Biography His father, Eric, was a government ombudsman for the Sámi people. While still a boy, he became part of the , a forerunne ...

(1717-1793). In 1755 at sixteen years of age, Floding received local support to travel in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

to learn engraving and work at the academy under the guidance of several notable painters and engravers. He was instructed by François-Philippe Charpentier (1734-1817) and resided chiefly in Paris. He developed rich talents and with his progress flowed commissions of increasingly more generous benefits. In 1761, Floding produced engravings including '' King Adolf Frederick on his throne with the estates by his side'' and ''

Minerva Minerva (; ett, Menrva) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. Minerva is not a patron of violence such as Mars, but of strategic war. From the second century BC onward, the Rom ...

against taking four children''. The engravings brought such a satisfaction, that the Estates awarded him 2,000

livres The (; ; abbreviation: ₶.) was one of numerous currencies used in medieval France, and a unit of account (i.e., a monetary unit used in accounting) used in Early Modern France. The 1262 monetary reform established the as 20 , or 80.88 gr ...

annually, and the following year 600 livres for the procurement of equipment and instruments. Using these new tools in 1762 he developed what became known as the "laver insertion method" . In 1763, Floding was appointed Royal Majesty Engraver and Garde d' Estampes of Crown Prince and future King Gustav III of Sweden. He returned in 1764 to Stockholm, where he began working on the creation of an engraving school, which also came into being. Through this school, the idea of a complete art school for Sweden gained new life. In 1768 the Royal Drawing Academy, which dated to 1735, was revived as the

(''Kungliga Akademien för de fria konsterna''). He received appointment to this post where until 1777, he served as professor of drawing at the academy and attended to secretarial duties. Later Floding came into conflict with the leadership at the academy and hinted that something was not right with the Academy's funds. However, during his time there he educated numerous disciples.

Selected work

He also engraved several plates, both in line and in

aquatint Aquatint is an intaglio (printmaking), 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. ...

, among which are the following: *''The Portrait of

Alexander Roslin Alexander Roslin (spelled Alexandre in French, ; 15 July 17185 July 1793) was a Swedish portrait painter who worked in Scania, Bayreuth, Paris, Italy, Warsaw and St. Petersburg, primarily for members of aristocratic families. He combined insigh ...

, painter''; after Roslin *''Apollo and Daphne''; after F. Boucher. *''Soldiers guarding a Prison''; after the same. *''A Girl sleeping, with a Dog by her''; after J. B. Deshais. *''Gustavus III., King of Sweden''; after L. Pasch. *''A Battle''; after

Casanova Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (, ; 2 April 1725 – 4 June 1798) was an Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice. His autobiography, (''Story of My Life''), is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of information about the c ...

References

Other sources

* Floding, Per Gustaf in Profil (second edition, 1908) Attribution: * * This article or parts of it are based on the article Floding, Per Gustaf from Swedish biographical hand dictionary (SBH), published in 1906. 1731 births 1791 deaths 18th-century engravers Swedish engravers Artists from Stockholm {{Sweden-artist-stub