Hubert François Gravelot

Place: Paris

Born: 1699

Death: 1773

Biography:

Hubert-François Bourguignon, commonly known as Gravelot a Décaméron (1757), La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761), the Contes moraux of Marmontel (1765), a French translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1767–71), and of Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata (1771). He died in Paris.
His illustrations of contemporary manners and costumes are known to have influenced English artists. Gravelot revitalized illustrative engraving in England, and after his return to Paris, a group of accomplished engravers continued to work in his manner. The descriptive precision and elegance of his line and the variety of his inventions can be seen in the drawings for two of his more important commissions, the second volume of Gay’s Fables and the second edition of L. Theobald's The Works of Shakespeare in Eight Volumes, and in his illustrations for the first French translation of Boccaccio Le Decameron, 1757. The books are listed by Gordon Ray as one of the most outstanding illustrated books of all time.

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