French Drawing
Nude seated academic drawing after Bernard Picart
Vintage academic male nude drawing, after Bernard Picart of a seated young male figure.
Selling this as a presumed hand made copy
Pencil and or chalk on tan laid paper 40.25 x 26.75 cm, sold unframed.
Bernard Picart or Picard (1673 – 1733), was a French draughtsman, engraver, and book illustrator in Amsterdam, who showed an interest in cultural and religious habits. Life Les Plaisirs de la Jeunesse A Picnic Party Portrait of Estienne Picart, who died after three days Picart was born in rue Saint-Jacques, Paris as son of Etienne Picart, a famous engraver. In 1689, he studied drawing and architecture at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. He was taught by Charles le Brun, along with Benoît Audran the Elder, Sébastien Leclerc and Antoine Coypel. In 1696 he wintered in Antwerp, where he was well-received. He stayed in Amsterdam for more than a year and had commissions before returning to France at the end of 1698. He took over his father's workshop. From 1702 on, he was editor of playwrights written by himself or the other members of Nil volentibus arduum.
After his wife, Cloudina Pros, the daughter of a bookseller, and their children died, he settled in The Hague together with Prosper Marchand in January 1710. There Picart, Marchand and Charles Levier belonged to a "radical Huguenot coterie", who studied the works of John Locke, which promoted the separation of church and state. [a] They joined the Walloon church but were influenced by Jean Claude and Pierre Bayle who both fled to the Dutch Republic in earlier years. Picart accepted a commission to draw prints for the Bible. He and Marchand moved to Amsterdam in 1711 (later being joined by his father Étienne Picart (le Romain).