Study of Five Heads

Study of Five Heads is a beautiful black and white etching with drypoint interventions on paper, realized at the end of the XVIII century by the French artist Jean-Jacques de Boissieu (Lyon, 1736 - 1810).

Signed on plate on the lower right margin “ De Boissieu ”.

This old master’s original print with fresh impressions is in very good conditions, except for a usual yellowing of the paper above all on the edges, some spread signs of the passing of time, and a light foxing along the margins.

Five studies of heads, of which two profiles (a female and a male), are beautifully sketched with the drypoint technique, allowing us to appreciate the incredible draftsmanship. Also the other three bigger portraits are very detailed and etched with a superb technique. Although the subjects are drawn in different scales and degrees of finish, each portrait has the dignity of a unique piece of art.

In particular on the lower margin at the center, there is the portrait of "Le Père Cotrot, Garçon Teinturier à Lyon", an elderly man, toothless, with a large nose, slightly turned to the left, with a hat and an unbuttoned jacket over waistcoat. This very realistic portrait shows all his wrinkles.

Jean-Jacques de Boissieu  (Lyon, 1736 –1810) was a French artist who studied at the École de Dessin in Lyon, but he was mostly self-taught. His earliest prints were realized between 1758 and 1764. When he went to Italy in the retinue of the ambassador and Duc de la Rochefoucauld d’Enville, he had a lifechanging encounter: he met  Voltaire  and entered the world of luminaries, and had the opportunity of realizing some plates for Diderot-d’Alembert’s Encyclopèdie. He then continued to produce prints in Lyon: many etchings of the Roman and Dutch countryside, as well as the French countryside around Lyon, earning a reputation as the last representative exponent of the older etching tradition.