Audran, Gérard (1640-1703; French)

Works included in this catalogue
Audran after Mignard Tableaux de la Voute de la Galerie du Petit Appartement du Roy a Versailles {1879} NGV [PR] [Levey gift, cat.111-113]
Audran after Spada Aeneas saving his father {1879} NGV [PR] [Levey gift, cat.34]

These engravings by Audran, a member of a print-making family, formed part of the 1879 Levey gift. The three prints after Mignard document now-lost ceiling paintings at Versailles, and the other engraving reproduces a painting from the French royal collection formerly thought to be by Domenichino but now regarded as the work of Leonello Spada (refer individual entries for further details). 

Recently, Louis Marchesano has written an illuminating account of Audran’s posthumous reputation, discussing the varied 18th- and 19th-century estimations of Audran’s “mixed technique” (combining engraving and etching), compared with the “pure” burin method of Gérard Edelinck.

Refs.

For Audran, see Bénézit 1, pp.829-30; AKL 5 (1992), p.602; and Marchesano in Fuhring Kingdom of Images (2015), pp.45-51, as noted above