Bernard Picart (11 June 1673 – 8 May 1733), was a French engraver, son of Etienne Picart, also
an engraver. He was born in Paris and died in Amsterdam. He moved to Antwerp in
1696, and then spent a year in Amsterdam before returning to France at the end
of 1698. After his wife died in 1708, he moved to Amsterdam in 1711 (later
being joined by his father), where he became a Protestant convert and married
again.
Most of
his work was book-illustrations, including the Bible and Ovid. His most famous work is Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses
de tous les peuples du monde, appearing from 1723 to 1743. Jonathan I. Israel calls Cérémonies "an immense effort to record the
religious rituals and beliefs of the world in all their diversity as
objectively and authentically as possible". Although Picart had never left
Europe, he relied on accounts by those who had and had access to a collection
of Indian sculpture.[1] The original French edition ofCérémonies comprises ten volumes of text and
engravings.
Israel
notes also that Picart left Paris with Prosper
Marchand, and collaborated on theCérémonies with Jean-Frédéric
Bernard, with a commitment to religious
toleration. Picart, Marchand and Charles
Levier belonged to a
"radical Huguenot coterie".
No comments:
Post a Comment