Abregé De La Vie Des Plus Fameux Peintres: Avec Leurs Portraits Gravés En Taille-Douce, Les Indications De Leurs Principaux Ouvrages, Quelques Réflexions sur leurs caractères Et La Manière De Connoître Les Desseins Des Grands Maîtres: Supplément
A supplement to Antoine Joseph Dézallier d'Argenville's 1752 French illustrated dictionary of painters' lives, which pairs biographies of famous artists with engraved portraits, notes on their major works, and advice on recognising drawings by great masters. The pictures are small oval engraved portraits of painters set in ornate Rococo cartouches, alongside woodcut vignettes of landscapes, urns, flowers and scrolling foliage. A designer could draw on the framing devices, with their scrolls, garlands and urn motifs, for decorative borders and title pages.
