Léon Davent

[8] He was perhaps taught etching by Antonio Fantuzzi, one of the Italians at Fontainebleau, and in turn seems to have passed some of his experience of techniques in engraving on to him.

The most productive printmakers were Davent, Fantuzzi, and Jean Mignon, followed by the "mysterious" artist known from his monogram as "Master I♀V" (♀ being the alchemical symbol for copper, from which the printing plates were made),[17] and the workshop seems to have been active between about 1542 and 1548 at the latest; François I of France died in March 1547, after which funding for the palace ended, and the school dispersed.

[19] The intention of the workshop was to disseminate the new style developing at the palace more widely, both to France and to the Italians' peers back in Italy.

David Landau believes that Primaticcio was the driving force;[20] he had stepped up to become the director of the work at Fontainebleau after the suicide of Rosso Fiorentino in 1540.

"[22] A broadening market for prints preferred the "highly finished textures" of Nicolas Beatrizet, and later "proficient but ultimately uninspired" engravers such as René Boyvin and Pierre Milan.

[23] David Landau describes one of his etchings (Female Nude Standing, see gallery) as representing "the imaginative recording of new artistic expression" in an "experimental etching ... full of adventurous lighting devices and daring chiaroscuro, but also defaced by the spots of foul biting and incompetent printing".

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it "provides an excellent example of Davent's preference for an all-over gray tone, from which a few lighter areas stand out, giving subtle relief to the forms.

This is achieved firstly by covering almost the entire surface of the plate, including the sky, with a close-knit web of lines.

[25] The obscurity of the subject is very typical of the School of Fontainebleau, and at times Jason, Theseus and Hercules have all been proposed as the hero, but it fits much better with the story of Cadmus, the legendary founder of Thebes, as told by Ovid.

[26] Davent did three etchings in vertical oval format after the cycle of frescos in the bedroom of Francois I's mistress, the Duchess of Étampes (1508–1580), from which a total of eleven compositions surviving today are known.

The oval paintings were set in much larger stucco frames, with a standing female nude to either side and much else besides; several of these survive.

Henri Zerner suggests "most tentatively" that 1498 was the date the sculptor signed the contract for his Pietà, now in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City with the French ambassador in Rome, Cardinal Jean de Bilhères, who commissioned the work.