Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret

Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret (30 January 1782, Bordeaux – 21 February 1863, Paris) was a French painter, pioneer lithographer and designer of medals and costumes for the stage, who studied with Jacques-Louis David.

He was born in Bordeaux, where he received his early training, then moved to Paris, where he worked in the ateliers of François-André Vincent and then Jacques-Louis David, where he met François Marius Granet and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.

Bergeret played a major role in introducing lithography, in part through his reproductive prints after paintings by Nicolas Poussin and Raphael: his lithograph Mercury (1804), reproducing a detail from Raphael’s fresco in the Villa Farnesina, and his caricatures of current Paris fashion, e.g. Les Musards de la Rue du Coq, Le Suprême Bon Ton Actuel (by 1805)[2] are among the earliest examples of lithographic technique.

Bergeret's efforts to win public commissions (such as the ceiling of the Bordeaux Opera House) often fell through due to ill fate as well as political machinations and person intrigues against him.

He was early among artists drawing subject matter from the culture of the Renaissance, in the style Troubadour: Honors Rendered to Raphael on His Deathbed 1806 (Allen Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio).