{{Short description|French engraver and painter}} {{Infobox artist | name = Claude Mellan | image = Claude Mellan Self Portrait.jpg | caption = Self-portrait, engraving by Claude Mellan (1635), [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]] | birth_date = {{Birth date|1598|05|23|df=y}} | birth_place = [[Abbeville]], France | death_date = {{Death date and age|1688|09|09|1598|05|23|df=yes}} | death_place = Paris, France }}
'''Claude Mellan''' (23 May 1598 – 9 September 1688){{efn|23 May 1598 is his date of baptism.}}{{sfn|Chilvers|2009}}<ref>{{cite web |title=Claude Mellan |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100148838 |website=Oxford Reference |access-date=2 January 2024 |language=en }}</ref> was a French draughtsman, [[engraving|engraver]], and [[Painting|painter]].{{sfn|Brejon de Lavergnée|1996}}
== Early life and training == Mellan was born in [[Abbeville]], the son of a customs official.{{sfn|Strutt|1786}}
His first known print (Préaud no. 288{{efn|Engraving catalog numbers are from Préaud 1988.}}), made for a thesis in theology at the Collège des Mathurins, shows that he was in Paris by 1619.{{sfn|Brejon de Lavergnée|1996}}{{efn|The Collège des Mathurins was a constituent college of the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]] (see [[:fr:Université de Paris]]).}} His first teachers have not been identified, but his early engravings are thought to show the influence of [[Léonard Gaultier]].{{sfn|Brejon de Lavergnée|1996}}
== Rome == In 1624 Mellan went to Rome, where he studied engraving for a brief time with [[Francesco Villamena]], who died that year. He then studied under [[Simon Vouet]], who had been in Rome since 1614. Vouet encouraged Mellan to draw, considering it essential for both engraving and painting. Mellan engraved some of Vouet's works and also began drawing small portraits from life. Many of his portrait drawings were never engraved.{{sfn|Brejon de Lavergnée|1996}} He developed a style that was simple and natural, that would be characteristic throughout his later career. Many of his engravings in Rome were reproductive works, including, for example, designs by [[Pietro da Cortona]] and [[Gianlorenzo Bernini]]. The few after his own designs include ''Saint Francis de Paul'' (Préaud no. 77) and the ''Penitent Magdalene'' (Préaud no. 113).{{sfn|Brejon de Lavergnée|1996}} The plates Mellan engraved in Rome were mostly executed in a conventional manner.{{sfn|Strutt|1786}}
== Later years in Paris == In 1637, after a period of time in [[Aix-en-Provence]] with [[Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc]], he returned to Paris, where he adopted an idiosyncratic technique, in which, instead of creating shade by [[cross-hatching]], he used a system of parallel lines, regulating tone by varying their breadth and closeness.{{sfn|Strutt|1786}} [[Joseph Strutt (engraver and antiquary)|Joseph Strutt]] wrote:
<blockquote> The effect, which he produced by this method of engraving, is soft and clear. In single figures, and small subjects, he succeeded very happily; but in large subjects, where great depth of shadow was required, he has failed....{{sfn|Strutt|1786|page=143}} </blockquote>
[[Image:Claude Mellan - Face of Christ - WGA14764.jpg|thumb|right|''Sudarium of Saint Veronica'', engraving by Claude Mellan, 1649]]
Particularly notable is his engraving ''The Face of Christ'' (1649; Préaud no. 21), also called the ''Sudarium of Saint Veronica'' (see [[Veil of Veronica]]), created from a single spiralling line that starts at the tip of Jesus' nose.{{sfn|Brejon de Lavergnée|1996}}{{sfn|Strutt|1786}}<ref name="Public">{{cite web |last1=Dukes |first1=Hunter |title=An Iconic Line: Claude Mellan’s The Sudarium of Saint Veronica (1649) |url=https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/mellan-sudarium-of-saint-veronica/ |website=The Public Domain Review |access-date=12 January 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240414145220/https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/mellan-sudarium-of-saint-veronica/ |archive-date=14 April 2024 |date=2 November 2021 |quote=This image was made with a single line. |url-status=live}}</ref>
During this later period in Paris, Mellan mostly engraved his own work. He was much sought after as a portrait artist, drawing from life and engraving the portraits. Among his subjects were members of the [[royal family of Bourbon]]. His drawings "reveal more variety of style and execution than he showed in the engravings."{{sfn|Brejon de Lavergnée|1996}} Two examples, for which both a drawing ([[Nationalmuseum, Stockholm]]) and an engraving exist, are portraits of [[Marie-Louise de Gonzague-Nevers]] (Préaud no. 167) and [[Henri de Savoie, Duc de Nemours]] (Préaud no. 182).{{sfn|Brejon de Lavergnée|1996}}
He also created large religious works with geometric layouts and poses. According to Barbara Brejon de Lavergnée, writing in ''[[The Dictionary of Art]]'', Mellan's use of the single line gives "an abstract effect"{{sfn|Brejon de Lavergnée|1996}} and, "as an engraver he proved sensitive to the classical ideal developed by [[Nicolas Poussin]], [[Jacques Stella]] and others in Paris in the middle of the 17th century."{{sfn|Brejon de Lavergnée|1996}} Among Mellan's reproductive engravings are two frontispieces for religious works after designs by Poussin (1640; Préaud no. 294) and Stella (1641; Préaud no. 296).{{sfn|Brejon de Lavergnée|1996}}
[[Anatole de Montaiglon]] catalogued 400 engravings by Mellan,<ref>Montaiglon 1856, cited by Brejon de Lavergnée 1996.</ref> and about 100 drawings are known.{{sfn|Brejon de Lavergnée|1996}} The latter are mostly in the Stockholm Nationalmuseum (via the collection of [[Carl Gustav Tessin]]) and the [[Hermitage, Saint Petersburg]] (via the [[Johann Karl Philipp von Cobenzl|Cobenzl]] collection).{{sfn|Brejon de Lavergnée|1996}} Several of Mellan's lost paintings are known from his engravings of them, including ''Samson and Delilah'' (Préaud no. 5) and ''Saint John the Baptist in the Desert'' (Préaud no. 84).{{sfn|Brejon de Lavergnée|1996}} A few other paintings were attributed to him, beginning in the 1970s, but these have not been generally accepted.{{sfn|Brejon de Lavergnée|1996}}
He died in [[Paris]].
== See also == *[[Maddalena Corvina]], fellow painter and subject of Mellan
== Notes == {{notelist}}
== References == {{Reflist}}
== Bibliography == * {{cite book |last1=Brejon de Lavergnée |first1=Barbara |editor1-last=Turner |editor1-first=Jane |title=The Dictionary of Art: In Thirty-four Volumes |date=1996 |publisher=Grove |location=New York |isbn=9781884446009 |pages=85–86 |volume=21 |edition=Reprinted with minor corrections |chapter=Mellan, Claude}} Also at [http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T056677 Oxford Art Online] (subscription required). * {{cite book |last1=Chilvers |first1=Ian |title=The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists |date=2009 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=9780199532940 |edition=4th}} * {{cite book |last1=Montaiglon |first1=Anatole de |last2=Mariette |first2=Pierre Jean |title=Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre de Claude Mellan d'Abbeville |date=1856 |publisher=P. Briez |location=Abbeville |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KlsCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA3 |access-date=2 January 2024 |language=fr}} * {{cite book |last1=Préaud |first1=Maxime |title=Inventaire du fonds français: Graveurs du dix-septième siècle. Tome 17, Claude Melan |date=1988 |publisher=Bibliothèque Nationale |location=Paris |isbn=9782717717778}} * {{cite book |last1=Strutt |first1=Joseph |author1-link=Joseph Strutt (engraver and antiquary) |title=A Biographical Dictionary Containing an Historical Account of All the Engravers, from the Earliest Period of the Art of Engraving to the Present Time |date=1786 |publisher=J. Davis, For Robert Faulder |location=New Bond Street, London |pages=142–144 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K14OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA142 |access-date=2 January 2024 |language=en |volume=2 |chapter=Claude Mellan}} Vols. [https://books.google.com/books?id=B14OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PR3 1] and [https://books.google.com/books?id=K14OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PP15 2] at Google Books.
== External links == {{Commons category|Claude Mellan}} * [http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15324coll10/id/13424 ''Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi''], a fully digitized exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries, which contains material on Claude Mellan (see index)
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mellan, Claude}} [[Category:People from Abbeville]] [[Category:1598 births]] [[Category:1688 deaths]] [[Category:17th-century French engravers]] [[Category:French Baroque painters]] [[Category:People from Picardy (province)]] [[Category:French draughtsmen]]