Jean-Michel Moreau (26 March 1741 – 30 November 1814), also called Moreau le Jeune ("the younger"), was a French draughtsman, illustrator and engraver.

Biography

Moreau le Jeune, as he is usually called, was born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. He was the pupil of the painter Louis-Joseph Le Lorrain who accompanied his master to

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

in 1758 when Le Lorrain went to be the first director of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts established the previous year, where Moreau briefly taught drawing before returning to Paris in 1759, after Le Lorrain's unexpected death. He worked for the engraver Jacques-Philippe Lebas, producing reproductive drawings of contemporary paintings and those of Old Masters for engravers to work from and learning

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other type ...

During the 1760s he also provided drawings to be engraved for the ''Recueil d’antiquités'' of the comte de Caylus, who kept a benevolent watch over him. For

Diderot Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominent figure during t ...

and Alembert's ''

Encyclopédie , better known as ''Encyclopédie'' (), was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It had many writers, known as the Encyclopédistes. It was edited by Denis ...

'' he provided pen and wash drawings for the engravers, illustrating artisanal processes. As an engraver he collaborated with

François Boucher François Boucher ( , ; ; 29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories ...

, Hubert Gravelot and others on illustrations for an edition of Ovid's ''Metamorphoses''. In 1765 Moreau married Françoise-Nicole Pineau, daughter of François Pineau, master sculptor, and Jeanne-Marie Prault - whose father was Pierre Prault, patriarch of a family of publishers, ''privilègiés du Roi''. In 1770 he succeeded Charles-Nicolas Cochin as chief ''Dessinateur des Menus Plaisirs du Roi'', on Cochin's recommendation, which occasioned his prints celebrating the marriage of the Dauphin and his coronation in 1781, in part on the strength of these productions he was appointed ''Dessinateur et Graveur du Cabinet du Roi'', which brought an annual pension and lodgings in the galleries of the

Palais du Louvre The Louvre Palace (, ), often referred to simply as the Louvre, is an iconic French palace located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, occupying a vast expanse of land between the Tuileries Gardens and the church of Saint-Ger ...

. Now he found that he required the services of other engravers to reproduce his own designs, which included illustrations for the '' Chansons'' of Jean-Benjamin de La Borde (1773), the collected works of

Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher ('' philosophe''), writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects ...

(1773–82) and of

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...

(printed at Brussels, 1782–9). For the Menus Plaisirs, the office that produced and executed all the designs for settings of court festivities and recorded them in presentation drawings, he recorded many occasions such as his famous pen-and-wash record of the inauguration in September 1771 of Mme du Barry's Pavillon de Louveciennes (''illustration, right''). He still found time for intimate portrait drawings in charcoal and chalks Moreau's name appears in the 1778 roster of Les Neuf Soeurs, the masonic lodge named for the

Muses In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, the Muses (, ) were the Artistic inspiration, inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric p ...

that had been founded two years previously by the astronomer

Jérôme Lalande Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande (; 11 July 1732 – 4April 1807) was a French astronomer, freemason and writer. He is known for having estimated a precise value of the astronomical unit (the distance from the Earth to the Sun) using measu ...

, and which served as a forum for progressive ideas. He traveled to Italy for six months in 1785 and was''agrée'' at the

Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture The Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (; ) was founded in 1648 in Paris, France. It was the premier art institution of France during the latter part of the Ancien Régime until it was abolished in 1793 during the French Revolution. I ...

in 1780 and received there as a full member in 1789. The French Revolution, with which Moreau was in sympathy, did not hinder his success as an illustrator, providing engravers with pen and wash drawings to replicate, as for a French translation of the ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan War#Sack of Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Ancient Rome ...

'' published in 1804 In 1793 Moreau was appointed to the ''commission temporaire des arts'' and in 1797 was made a professor at the newly reformed ''écoles centrales''. With the Bourbon restoration in 1814

Louis XVIII Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (), was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. Before his reign, he spent 23 y ...

appointed him once again to a royal office. He died in Paris. In his prolific career his best-known works are those twenty-four illustrations that record fashionable dress and interiors of the last years of the

Ancien Régime ''Ancien'' may refer to * the French word for " ancient, old" ** Société des anciens textes français * the French for "former, senior" ** Virelai ancien ** Ancien Régime ** Ancien Régime in France {{disambig ...

, his contributions to the ''Monument du costume physique et morale'',The project was sponsored by the Strasbourg financier and amateur engraver Jean-Henri Eberts. twelve as a ''Suite d'estampes pour servir à l'histoire dews mœurs des François au dix-huitième siècle'', 1776 and 1777, and twelve more in the ''Troisième Suite d'éstampes pour servir a l'Histoire des Moeurs et du Costume...'', 1783, published by his uncle by marriage, L.-F. Prault, and many times re-issued in varying formats, notably in a collection in 1789 with text by Restif de la Bretonne. Each of the first dozen of these vignettes of stylish contemporary life has an element of anecdote, reporting in a cohesive and unified manner "a highly idealized vision of an aristocratic family's approach to childbearing and motherhood based on the philosophy of Rousseau" (Heller-Greenman). In the second suite, a hint of criticism of aristocratic duplicity in affairs of the heart can be discerned and some rural ''vignettes vertueuses'' (sentimental and virtuous) provide a contrasting social world in the manner of Greuze. Moreau le Jeune's reputation was resuscitated from oblivion in the later nineteenth century by the connoisseurs of the ''dix-huitième'' Edmond and

Jules de Goncourt Jules Alfred Huot de Goncourt (; 17 December 183020 June 1870) was a French writer, who published books together with his brother Edmond. Jules was born and died in Paris. His death at the age of 39 was at Auteuil of a stroke brought on by sy ...

Notes

External links

(Getty Museum) Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune(Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco) Several drawingsBernadine Heller-Greenman, "Moreau le Jeune and the ''Monument du Costume''", ''Athanor'' 20 (On-line text, pdf format

(the death date 1819 is a misprint.) {{DEFAULTSORT:Moreau, Jean-Michel 1741 births 1814 deaths Artists from Paris 18th-century French illustrators French draughtsmen 18th-century French engravers

Biography

Notes

Further reading

External links