Jean Duvet

According to Henri Zerner, his work has a "freedom and immediacy that have no equivalent in Renaissance printmaking". A degree of mystery surrounds his biography, as there is disagreement as to whether or not he was the Jean Duvet from Dijon who spent sixteen years in the militantly Calvinist city-state of Geneva.

He was born to a Dijon goldsmith in 1485, presumably in Dijon itself, which until a decade before had been part of the independent state of the Duchy of Burgundy. He became a master of the Dijon Goldsmiths' guild in 1509, and may have travelled to Italy in about 1519; this is purely an inference from his prints, which show considerable Italian influence. His first dated print is The Annunciation from 1520, although others are probably earlier. A misunderstanding of the nature of a pilaster in this print, which shows a putto wrapped round one as though it were a thin sheet, unattached to the wall behind, perhaps suggests that his understanding of the Italian style was derived purely from prints, books and other objects brought back to France. Although he remained in the provinces, he was appointed goldsmith to both Francis I and Henry II. The first of these appointments was on the occasion of the King's visit to Langres, where he was already living, in 1521; he had been involved in the decorations for the Royal Entry. By the next royal visit, in 1533, he was in charge of the festivities and decoration. The influence of pageant tableaus and scenery has been detected in his prints. No identified examples of his goldsmithing survive, though commissions for Francis I and others are documented. He died, probably in Langres, after 1562, when he is recorded as attending a town meeting there, though Zerner gives his death date as 1561 and Marqusee says that there is no specific documentation of Duvet after the last Geneva mention in 1556. His last dated print is the Frontispiece of 1555. He was certainly dead by 1570, but some authorities think he was alive until about then - 1570 is the death date given by the Getty Union Artist Names List for example.

All seventy-three prints listed by Eisler are very rare - only seven copies of the Apocalypse with text are known, each with slightly different contents, although impressions of individual prints are commoner, and mostly earlier. Some individual engravings survive only in unique impressions. It is assumed that most of his prints in his characteristic crowded style and round-topped format date from the period 1540-55, based mainly on the 1555 date of the Apocalypse frontispiece. A few simpler but intense prints are usually taken to date from his last years, when his horror vacui, or inability to leave space unfilled, abated somewhat. He copied prints by Marcantonio and Mantegna, and his burin technique is especially indebted to the former. A very free copy of Mantegna's Entombment shows him imposing his own vision with complete confidence on the composition of another artist.

His most famous works are his series of twenty-three engravings on the Apocalypse, the frontispiece of which (above) is dated 1555. They borrow heavily from the famous series in woodcut of Albrecht Dürer (1498) but are very different in style - crowded, even confused, but urgent and intense. Eight of the series derive their composition in some way from Dürer. This was published, with the accompanying text, in Lyon in 1561. Like many of his mature prints these use a round-topped shape. The frontispiece has the Latin inscriptions: "Jean Duvet goldsmith of Langres aged 70 made these histories 1555" (on the plate on the table) and "The Fates are pressing, already sight fails, the mind remains victorious, and the great work is completed" (by the swan), suggesting this was last of the series to be completed.

His other famous work is his series of six prints on the unicorn, still very personal but more lyrical in style; until the nineteenth century he was known as the "Unicorn Master" after these. Series celebrating the French monarchy and Genesis were left aside after a few plates each.