Ornemens de peinture et de sculpture

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The French designer, architect, and engraver Jean Bérain, the elder (1640-1711) has been credited with being one of the creators of the Louis XIV style. His drawings of the wall and ceiling ornaments of Galerie d’Apollon in the Louvre and those for doors and wall paneling of Louis XIV’s apartment in the Tuileries were published under the title Ornemens de peinture et de sculpture (ca. 1710). The large folio volume included an engraved title page and twenty-eight engraved plates. An incomplete, unbound set is in graphic arts.

These designs have been alternately ascribed to Bérain, the elder, and to his son, Jean Bérain, the younger (1674-1726). What is clear is that the Bérains engraved eleven of the plates themselves and had the rest done by a series of French printmakers. François Chauveau (1613-1676) engraved thirteen, Jean Lemoyne (sometimes spelled Le Moine, 1638-1715) engraved four, and Gérard Jean-Baptiste Scotin (1671-1716) is responsible for the title page.

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