Jean-Jacques Boissieu, French (1736 - 1810)

(b Lyon, 30 Nov 1736; d Lyon, 1 March 1810). French printmaker, draughtsman and painter. Apart from studying briefly at the Ecole Gratuite de Dessin in Lyon, he was self-taught. His first concentrated phase as a printmaker was 1758–64, during which he published three suites of etchings. Boissieu spent 1765–6 in Italy in the company of Louis-Alexandre, Duc de la Rochefoucauld (1743–93), returning to Lyon via the Auvergne with a cache of his own landscape drawings. He remained in Lyon, where he published further prints at intervals, making occasional trips to Paris and Geneva. Boissieu’s prints earned him the reputation of being the last representative of the older etching tradition—he particularly admired Rembrandt van Rijn—at a time when engraving was being harnessed for commercial prints, and lithography was coming into use. For his landscape etchings Boissieu drew upon the scenery of the Roman Campagna, the watermills, windmills and rustic figures of the Dutch school (notably Salomon van Ruysdael) and the countryside around Lyon. He also engraved têtes d’expression and genre scenes. His work as a printmaker was intermittent, covering the periods 1758–64, 1770–82 and after 1789, although his skill was such that he was much sought after as a reproductive engraver; one example of his work is the Landscape with Huntsmen and Dogs after a painting (San Francisco, CA Pal. Legion of Honor) by Jan Wijnants.