Jacques Callot

After the death of Cosimo II de' Medici during 1621, he returned to Nancy where he lived for the rest of his life, visiting Paris and the Netherlands later during the decade.

He developed the échoppe, a type of etching-needle with a slanting oval section at the end, which enabled etchers to create a swelling line, as engravers were able to do.

He also seems to have been responsible for an improved recipe for the etching ground that coated the plate and was removed to form the image, using lute-makers varnish rather than a wax-based formula.

One of his devotees, the Parisian Abraham Bosse spread Callot's innovations all over Europe with the first published manual of etching, which was translated into Italian, Dutch, German and English.

These images show soldiers pillaging and burning their way through towns, country and convents, before being variously arrested and executed by their superiors, lynched by peasants, or surviving to live as crippled beggars.

The former title comes from a father and son who were paid to wander around the Mansion House in London wearing oversized hats that contained advertisements.