Hubert François Gravelot

Gravelot (French painter and printmaker, 1699-1773, active in England)

Note: Born 26 March 1699; died 19 April 1773. In 1733, Gravelot opened a drawing school in London, England. He returned to France in 1745.

LC Heading: Gravelot, Hubert François, 1699-1773

Biography:

Gravelot owes his fame to the book illustrations he produced in the 18th century. His most sought-after titles include works by Boccaccio, Corneille and Racine, Marmontel's Moral Tales (Contes Moraux), and Ovid's Metamorphoses. Gravelot, whose name does not appear in most biographical dictionaries of art, was the younger brother of the famous geographer Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville. He studied art in Paris under Jean Restout the Elder, then François Boucher. After obtaining a job with the French ambassador's retinue in Rome, he took up residence in Lyons, then returned to Paris where he squandered the money he had earned on his travels. Gravelot then obtained a posting with the governor of Saint Domingue (now Haiti) and accompanied him to that colony, where he produced a map of the island. After a ship bringing him money from his father was lost at sea, the young artist found himself completely penniless and homesick for his family. He was sent back to France and returned as a prodigal son to Paris. He endeavoured to make money by painting but probably did not manage to sell anything. He also turned his hand to a variety of jobs and it may have been at this time that he executed various drawings for items of jewellery described in Bryan's Dictionary in the entry devoted wrongly to Gravelot under the name of 'Bourguignon-Gravelot'.

In 1733 he was invited to London by Claude du Bosc to help engrave plates for Religious Ceremonies after Bernard Picart. Although he was initially regarded as a spy because of his strange behaviour, he overcame these difficulties and soon made his reputation by publishing a Treatise on Perspective. Gravelot opened a drawing school on the Strand in London, and his precise, witty style of execution exerted a certain degree of influence on the English school. He was the first to realise Gainsborough's talent and he did what he could to help the great portraitist launch his career.

Gravelot was one of the leading caricaturists in England. He attacked Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Burlington and executed The Ship of State and The Funeral of the Factions. He was a close friend of Hogarth and helped him engrave his first copperplates. The war between France and England, and particularly the defeat at Fontenoy, made it easy for Gravelot's enemies to make his position untenable in England, so he returned to Paris.

When peace meant that he could return to London, he did some brilliant work in the capital - 'draughtsman by taste, engraver by necessity,' he declared - until 1754, when he took up permanent residence in Paris. Among the works executed in England it is worth noting Churches and Antiquities of the County of Gloucester, Pamela by Richardson, and illustrations for Theobald's edition of Shakespeare. On arriving back in Paris with a small fortune, Gravelot was ranked among the most brilliant illustrators of his time and it was he who produced the engravings for J.-J. Rousseau's La Nouvelle Héloïse. Gravelot's drawings were remarkable for their subtlety and flawless execution.

("GRAVELOT." Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed April 14, 2016, http://proxy.bostonathenaeum.org:2154/subscriber/article/benezit/B00078344.)