Study for the engraving of Saint Francesco De Paola

CLAUDE MELLAN

French, 1598 – 1688

Study for the engraving of Saint Francesco De Paola, 1627

Black and red chalk etching

Public domain

Gift of the Frederick and Lucy S. Herman Foundation

1993.081

Born in France to a family of coppersmiths, Claude Mellan studied engraving in Paris and then Rome. While in Rome, he learned to draw in chalk from Simon Vouet. When he returned to Paris, he established himself as a masterly printmaker noted for his technically astonishing engravings. Much of his work, like Study for the engraving of Saint Francesco De Paola, is religious. Mellan’s use of red and black chalk here had to be translated to exquisitely hatched lines in the engraved print. This attention to cross-hatching is already evident in the drawing (especially the hood) and gives some idea of how the artist worked up the colorful drawing with the print technique in mind.

Katherine Welch ‘21