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Godefroy Engelmann (August 17, 1788 – April 25, 1839) was a Franco-German lithographer and chromolithographer.
Godefroy Engelmann was born in 1788 in
The Cleveland Museum of Art - 8 artist worksNederlands Steendrukmuseum / Dutch Museum of Lithography
Pictures and texts of ''Lettres sur la Suisse'' by Godefroy Engelmann (et al.) can be found in the database VIATIMAGES
{{DEFAULTSORT:Engelmann, Godefroy 1788 births 1839 deaths Artists from Mulhouse French draughtsmen 19th-century French engravers 19th-century French lithographers 19th-century French male artists 19th-century French inventors
Biography
Godefroy Engelmann was born in 1788 in Mühlhausen
Mühlhausen () is a town in the north-west of Thuringia, Germany, north of Niederdorla, the country's Central Germany (geography)#Geographical centre, geographical centre, north-west of Erfurt, east of Kassel and south-east of Göttingen ...
, a small town near the France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
/Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
/Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
border. At the time of his birth Mulhouse was a free German republic associated with the Swiss Confederation, but was annexed by France 10 years later. He died in that same town in 1839, from a tumor in his neck.
Engelmann trained in Switzerland and France at La Rochelle and Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...
, and he studied painting and sketching in Jean-Baptiste Regnault's atelier in Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
. In the summer of 1814 he travelled to Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
, Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
to study lithography
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...
, a German invention. The following spring, he founded La Société Lithotypique de Mulhouse. In June 1816 he opened a workshop in Paris.
Engelmann is largely credited with bringing lithography to France, and later, commercializing chromolithography
Chromolithography is a method for making multi-colour printmaking, prints in lithography, and in theory includes all types of lithography that are printed in colour. However, in modern usage it is normally restricted to 19th-century works, and ...
. In 1837 he was granted an English patent for a process of chromolithography that provided consistently high-quality results.
Throughout his life, he produced large numbers of prints, including numerous plates for Baron Isidore Justin Séverin Taylor's celebrated collection of lithographs, "".
Engelmann's Paris printing company, "" was passed on to his son, Godefroy Engelmann II (born 1819), who carried on his father's work with the same high artistic quality until his own death in 1897.
Notes
References
The Cleveland Museum of Art - 8 artist works
Further reading
* Tanya Szrajber, 'Documents on Godefroy Engelmann’s Chromolithographie', ''Print Quarterly'', XXVIII, 2011, pp. 414–17.External links
Pictures and texts of ''Lettres sur la Suisse'' by Godefroy Engelmann (et al.) can be found in the database VIATIMAGES
{{DEFAULTSORT:Engelmann, Godefroy 1788 births 1839 deaths Artists from Mulhouse French draughtsmen 19th-century French engravers 19th-century French lithographers 19th-century French male artists 19th-century French inventors