{{Short description|French painter and illustrator}} thumb|upright=1.35|''The Journée of 13 Vendémiaire, Year 4, The Saint Roch Church, Rue Saint-Honoré, Paris''. '''Charles Monnet''', also known as '''Charles Monet''' (10 January 1732 – after 1808), was a French painter and illustrator, best known for his illustrations used in books, including illustrations of the French Revolution.<ref name="SAAM">{{cite web|url=http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artist/?id=28303|title=Charles Monnet|website=Smithsonian American Art Museum|accessdate=2 August 2017}}</ref><ref name="Benezit">{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/dictionnairecrit03bene#page/294/mode/2up|title=Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs & graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays|author=Emmanuel Bénézit|year=1924|location=Paris|publisher=Ernst Gründ|volume=Third|accessdate=2 August 2017|via=archive.org|page=295}}</ref>
==Life== Born in Paris, he studied under Jean II Restout. Although he never became a full academian, on July 27, 1765 he was made a provisional member of the Académie Royale,<ref>{{cite book|author=William L. Kissick|title=Medicine's Dilemmas: Infinite Needs Versus Finite Resources|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G038jRhEwRkC&pg=PA257|year=1994|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-05965-6|page=257}}</ref> where he won first prize for the painting, ''Nabucliodonosor faisant crever les yeux à Sédicias et faisant massacrer ses enfants''. His works in the mid 1760s and 1770s included portraits and religious and mythical scenes. He became "one of the best vignettists of his time" and well-known for his work as an illustrator, notably for an edition of ''Fables de La Fontaine'' published by Fessard.<ref name="Benezit" />
[[File:Charles Monnet - Zéphir et Flore - 1768.jpg|thumb|left|''Zéphir and Flore'', Petit Trianon at the Palace of Versailles]] He completed two large compositions above the doors of the dining room in the Petit Trianon at the Palace of Versailles, ''Boreas and Orithyia'' and ''Zéphir and Flore'', completed in 1768.<ref>{{Base Joconde|000PE011953|Zephir et Flora}}</ref><ref>{{Base Joconde|000PE011233|Borée et Orithye}}</ref> His illustrations have been used for porcelain vases.<ref>{{cite book|author=Adrian Sassoon|title=Vincennes and Sèvres Porcelain: Catalogue of the Collections|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U68vAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA131|date=March 12, 1992|publisher=Getty Publications|isbn=978-0-89236-173-1|pages=130–131, 150}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/990/charles-monnet-french-1732-after-1808/|title=Garniture of Three Vases (and others)|website=The J. Paul Getty Museum|accessdate=2 August 2017}}</ref> Painted in polychrome enamels by highly skilled artisans using a method of garniture, several were purchased for Versailles by King Louis XVI in 1781.<ref>{{cite book|author=J. Paul Getty Museum|title=The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collection: Eighth Edition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VJT1CAAAQBAJ&pg=PA303|date=May 1, 2015|publisher=Getty Publications|isbn=978-1-60606-449-8|page=303}}</ref>
Monnet made fifteen illustrations of the French Revolution, named ''Main Days of the Revolution'', which were engraved by Isidore-Stanislas Helman and published in a volume in 1798.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://parismuseescollections.paris.fr/fr/musee-carnavalet/oeuvres/tableau-no-8-des-principales-journees-de-la-revolution-l-execution-de-louis#infos-principales |title=Tableau nº 8 des "Principales Journées de la Révolution", L'exécution de Louis XVI, place de la Révolution, actuelle place de la Concorde, actuel 8ème arrondissement, le 21 janvier 1793|publisher=Les Musées de la Ville de Paris|accessdate=2 August 2017|language=fr}}</ref> The illustrations were also turned into etchings by Antoinne-Jean Duclos and Jean Duplessis-Bertaux.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Sandrine Papleux|author2=50 minutes|title=La Révolution française et la fin de la monarchie absolue: Aux armes, citoyens!|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZNjQDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA52|date=August 9, 2016|publisher=50 Minutes|language=fr|isbn=978-2-8062-6675-0|pages=52–}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Robert Darnton|author2=Daniel Roche|title=Revolution in Print: The Press in France, 1775-1800|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_aVPJtVWbyQC&pg=PA223|year=1989|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-06431-7|pages=223–224}}</ref> Engravings were made of 153 of his illustrations for ''Abrege de l’Histoire universelle en figures, dessinees et gravees par les meilleurs artistes de la capitale'', which was published in 1790.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/bibliographyofei00lewi#page/2|title=Bibliography of eighteenth century art and illustrated books; being a guide to collectors of illustrated works in English and French of the period|author=J. Lewine|year=1898|location=London|publisher=S. Low, Marston & Company, limited|via=archive.org|accessdate=2 August 2017}}</ref> He also illustrated scenes from the history of the First French Empire and (with Jean-Michel Moreau, Clément-Pierre Marillier and Pietro Antonio Martini); Voltaire's ''Romans et contes'' of 1778; and Pierre Choderlos de Laclos's ''Les Liaisons dangereuses'' in its 1796 London edition.{{citation needed|date=August 2017}}
He exhibited regularly at the Salon and ended his career as a drawing professor at the military École de Saint-Cyr.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gac.culture.gov.uk/work.aspx?obj=14509|title=Artist Biography: Charles Monnet|website=Government Art Collection, Department for Digital, Cultural Media, and Sport|accessdate=2 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170802204744/http://www.gac.culture.gov.uk/work.aspx?obj=14509|archive-date=2 August 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref> He died in Paris, where he was living in 1808.<ref name="SAAM" /><ref name="Benezit" />
His works are in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=74652|title=Euridice amor ti rende|website=Smithsonian American Art Museum|accessdate=2 August 2017}}</ref> Metropolitan Museum of Art,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/search-results#!/search?q=Charles%20Monnet|title=Search: Charles Monnet — Temple of the Muses|website=Metropolitan Museum of Art|accessdate=2 August 2017}}</ref> Bibliothèque Nationale, and Château de Malmaison.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.scholarsresource.com/browse/artist/2142562737|title=Charles Monnet|website=Scholars Resource|accessdate=2 August 2017}}</ref>
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==Gallery== <gallery heights="180px" widths="180px"> File:Monnet Telemachus and Mentor.jpg|''Monnet Telemachus and Mentor'', 1774 File:Prince de Lambesc.jpg|''Charles Eugéne, Prince de Lambesc in parade attire of Grand Écuyer de France'', 1790 File:1802_Toussaint_Louverture_re%C3%A7oit_une_lettre_de_Napol%C3%A9on.jpg|''Toussaint Louverture Receiving a Letter from the First Consul'', black ink and wash, 1802, Château de Malmaison. It is one of his 69 drawings illustrating the ''History of France under the Empire of Napoleon the Great.'' </gallery>
== References== <references/>
== External links== {{Commons category-inline}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Monnet, Charles}} Category:1732 births Category:1800s deaths Category:18th-century French painters Category:French illustrators Category:Painters from Paris Category:19th-century French painters Category:19th-century French male artists Category:18th-century French male artists