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François, Jean-Charles
(b Nancy, 4 May 1717; d Paris, 22 March 1769). French engraver and publisher. After studying painting at Nancy, he started work in 1733 in Dijon as an engraver of coats of arms. From 1740 to 1748 he worked as an engraver in Lyon with the publisher Robert-Menge Pariset, who in 1748 brought out his Principes de dessein faciles et dans le goût du crayon (Pognon and Bruand, nos 1–12). François then established himself in Paris, where he published (1751–3) volumes of engravings by the architect Emmanuel Héré (PB 227–91) of the châteaux in Lorraine belonging to Stanislav I, King of Poland. François was a skilled and inventive printmaker, who is best known for being the first in France to practise engraving in the crayon manner (see CRAYON MANNER, §2) in order to imitate chalk drawings. To achieve this, he employed, in turn, the burin to make double or triple lines (1740–48); a plate prepared by the use of a mezzotint rocker (1756); etching on top of a varnish ground prepared with various tools (1757); and soft-ground etching reworked with tools (1758). In the Rape of Ganymede (1758; PB 107), after François Boucher, he also experimented with a tonal process known as lavis, a precursor of the aquatint. He made, after old or contemporary masters, more than 300 plates, most of which were teaching examples. The engraving that François made in 1767 of the portrait of Dr François Quesnay (PB 108), after Jean-Martial Frédou (c. 1711–95), combined all his techniques and epitomizes his expertise. Although he received little support from official circles, he finally obtained in 1757 a pension and the post of Graveur des Desseins du Cabinet du Roi. He worked for a time with his rival Gilles Demarteau; Louis-Marin Bonnet was his pupil.
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