Paul Fourdrinier

The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is visual arts, copper engraving technique and book illustration. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait. Places of work recorded in the authority are London and Amsterdam. Work by Paul Fourdrinier is recorded in the collections of National Portrait Gallery, Yale Center for British Art, Print Collection and Australian National Maritime Museum.

Paul Fourdrinier, engraver and printseller, was born on 20 December 1698 in Groningen in the Netherlands, the son of Jacques Fourdrinier and his wife, Jeanne Theroude, Huguenot refugees from Dieppe, Normandy. He was a pupil of Bernard Picart at Amsterdam for six years, and came to England in 1720. He was employed in engraving portraits and book illustrations. He also engraved two works by Peter Monamy, marine paintings displayed in Vauxhall Gardens. The engravings were published in 1743, but may have been executed earlier. Starting in 1742 Fourdrinier produced a series of books consisting of numerous folding charts showing "The Succession of Colonels to all his Majesties Land Forces from their Rise to 1742", as well as many other details of British military and naval personnel.

The 2004 edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography makes it clear that in the 19th century edition of the Dictionary of National Biography this engraver's works and career were assigned to two individuals, Peter (or Pierre) and Paul Fourdrinier. Peter/Pierre is now seen to be a fictitious individual resulting from an accidental misnaming of Paul. Paul Fourdrinier is mentioned as the engraver of some of the works listed above, and he has been identified with the Paul Fourdrinier who was of the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, married to Susanna Grolleau, and who died in January or February 1758. The couple had at least five children. His grandsons, Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier, developed a synonymous papermachine, and his great-granddaughter, Jemima Fourdrinier, was the mother of Cardinal John Henry Newman. The engravings listed are in all cases inscribed "P. Fourdrinier". The title-page of Chambers's Civil Architecture says that the plates were engraved by "Old Rooker, Old Fourdrinier, and others". Paul Fourdrinier also founded a stationery business which was carried on by his son Henry and grandsons Henry and Sealy until at least 1811.

He engraved portraits of: • Cardinal Wolsey and Bishop Tonstall in Richard Fiddes's The Life of Cardinal Wolsey • John Radcliffe, M.D., after Kneller • William Pattison, poet, after J. Saunders • William Conolly, speaker of the House of Commons in Ireland, after Jervas • Jonathan Swift, after Jervas • Dr. John Friend, after M. Dahl • Thomas Wright, after G. Allen

Paul Fourdrinier is recorded as printmaker, printseller, engraver, artist and cartographer.