Collection Online as of June 4, 2023
New Suite of Portfolios of Flowers Ideal to Use for Designing and Painting: Floral Fantasies
Color etching
Platemark: 19.6 x 14 cm (7 11/16 x 5 1/2 in.)
James Parmelee Fund 1968.39
Catalogue raisonné: Roux: Inventaire du Fonds Français; graveurs du XVIIIe siecle, Vol. I, p. 152, 2
Location
not on view
Description
As a painter and decorative artist,Jean Baptiste Pillement ornamented a broad range of objects including ceramics, textiles, and other household objects. He employed several printmakers to copy his designs that were then disseminated throughout Europe. The best of the printmakers, Anne Allen, colored the etched plate à la poupée. Instead of making a plate for each color, a single plate is selectively inked in different colors using stumps of rags, known as dolls (poupée in French), so that the complete design is printed at one time.
Jean Baptiste Pillement
In the early part of his career, he worked as a textile designer at the Gobelins factory, and as a decorative painter in Spain and Portugal. He eventually moved to London, where in 1955 he published the first of many books of Chinoiserie designs. However, he was most well-known for his prints of flowers. His popularity waned significantly when Rococo design fell out of fashion at the end of the century.