Robert Nanteuil

His style of drawing was influenced by the painter Philippe de Champaigne, and his engraving, by Claude Mellan and Jean Morin.

[4] His crayon drawings and engraved portraits having attracted attention, by 1652 his work was in high demand.

[5][6] It was mainly due to his influence that the king granted the edict of 1660, dated from Saint-Jean-de-Luz, by which engraving was pronounced free and distinct from the mechanical arts, and its practitioners were declared entitled to the privileges of other artists.

Nanteuil's clientele included the Sun King himself, Cardinal Richelieu, Queen Christina of Sweden and many other high-ranking aristocrats and personages of note.

[2] In his early practice he imitated the technique of his predecessors, working with straight lines, strengthened, but not crossed, in the shadows, in the style of Claude Mellan, and in other prints cross-hatching like Regnesson, or stippling in the manner of Jean Boulanger; but he gradually asserted his full individuality, modeling the faces of his portraits with the utmost precision and completeness, and employing various methods of touch for the draperies and other parts of his plates.