Engraving By Larmessin: The Confectioner

From the series of Grotesque Costumes and Trade Clothes.
Proof with some colour highlights, cut at the limit of the copper on the right border, thinning of the paper and small loss on the back of the left margin.
The address of Chiquet (active circa 1707-1721) allows us to date the print around 1710.

Even more than Arcimboldo, the engravings are part of a tradition that goes back to the 16th century, that of the freer masquerades or court balls where the costumes were “made more to take and give entertainment, than to affect to appear magnificent” (Mercure galant, March 1683, p.325). Certain plates of ballet costumes, engraved by Lepautre after drawings by Berain or Gissey, certainly also inspired the engravers at the origin of the series of Grotesque Costumes.
"Maxime Préaud has thus provided an unprecedented ordering and enumeration of a series "of variable dimensions [published] in several installments" while providing valuable documents for understanding its genesis and its fortune. He identifies the three chronological phases of its creation and publication, by Nicholas I (author of the "first series", divided into two sub-series), by his widow Marie Bertrand then by his younger brother Nicholas II, before reissues by Jean Colart, François Hurand or Jacques Chiquet."
"The first episode, the most important, includes 62 plates: it was initiated by Nicolas I de Larmessin (1632-1694). 14 plates were then published by his widow, “between May 23, 1694 and May 20, 1701, perhaps engraved after drawings by her late husband... As for Nicolas II [1645-1725, younger brother of Nicolas I but not his heir], he published 22, which he drew and engraved himself, addressed to the Coupe d'or, from 1695”

Roger-Armand Weigert, "On the Larmessin and the Grotesque Costumes", in Nouvelles de l'estampe, 2, 1969, pp. 67-75
Pascale Cugy, "A new link in the genesis of the family's Grotesque Costumes Larmessin », Nouvelles de l'estampe [Online], 263 | 2020, published on June 20, 2020, consulted on August 23, 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/estampe/1416 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/estampe.1416
Maxime Préaud, "Printmaking in the Grand Siècle: Studies Offered to Maxime Préaud", Published by Ecole des chartes. Paris; National Library of France - 2010

Copper width: 200.00
Copper height: 270.00
Sheet width: 210.00
Sheet height: 312.00