Antoine Benoist (engraver)

Antoine Benoist (by 1721–1770) was a French draughtsman and engraver, who spent much of his working life in London, and was known as Anthony Benoist.

Life

He was born at Tracy-le-Mont in Picardy, the son of the artist Jean-Isaac Benoist. The date of birth 1721 traditionally given is questioned and considered probably too late in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.[1] Some drawings he did of sculpture in Notre-Dame de Paris have been dated to the later 1720s. They survived in engravings by Bernard de Montfaucon. He also drew sculpture at the Basilica of Saint-Denis.[2]

By 1735 Benoist was brought to England by the engraver Claude du Bosc.[1] He found other employment as a teacher of drawing in wealthy families.[3]

During the War of the Austrian Succession, and at least between 1744 and 1747, Benoist was working in Paris.[1] He died in London in August 1770.[3]

Works
Antoine Benoist, 1741 engraving of King Louis XV

Among Benoist's engravings are a portrait of Louis XV, after Nicholas Blakey, dated 1741.[3] He took on work of all kinds, and engraved a map of Kew Gardens as Plan of the royal gardens of Richmond, c. 1750.[4]

Benoist was the first to engrave a cricket match.[4] That work was part of a set of designs produced by Francis Hayman, for Vauxhall Gardens, and was published in 1743.[1] That year he engraved a Peak District view for Thomas Smith of Derby, of Dovedale, in a collection later reprinted by John Boydell.[5][6]

In the 1740s Benoist with Louis Truchy produced the engravings of the Pamela series of 12 paintings by Joseph Highmore.[7]

In later life Benoist engraved works of Dominic Serres related to scenes of the Seven Years' War, such as the Capture of Belle Île and the Siege of Quebec, with war damage to the cathedral in the city (which Serres had not visited).[1][8]

"Mock Masons" frieze

Benoist made a frieze on two plates representing The Grand Procession of the Scald Miserable Masons, dated 1742, and recording a mocking event on 27 April (O.S.) taking off a Masonic parade held on the same date.[1] Its full length is nearly 4 feet (1.2 m).[9]

Vic Gatrell considers that this work documents what was effectively the last gasp of the rough music tradition of London, through disrespectful spectacles in which "men on donkeys blew cowhorns and banged drums":

Its ambition is commemorated in what is one of the largest of all eighteenth-century topographical engravings.[10]

William Hone wrote about it in his Every-day Book, first published 1825–6.[11] Albert Mackey dates this satirical pageant to 1741, with a first event in March followed by a fuller procession on 27 April. He states that the actual annual Masonic procession it was aimed at was discontinued, but in 1757. The organisers of the "Mock Masons" were Paul Whitehead and Esquire Carey, surgeon to Frederick, Prince of Wales.[12] There is a detailed description of the procession in a British Museum catalogue of 1877.[13] Hone's account has an engraving after a 1741 engraving of a mock procession, that design being tentatively attributed to Whitehead based on comments of his biographer Edward Thompson.[14][15]

Attributed works

There is another engraver named Benoist of the period, leading to problems of attribution. They involve C. L. Benoist, born in Paris, who came to London with Claude du Bosc in 1712.[16]

Some engravings for Frederick, Prince of Wales, views of Malta reproducing works by Joseph Goupy, may have been by Antoine or by C. L. Benoist.[17] The British Museum credits Antoine, as does the Cleveland Museum of Art.[18][19] Some etchings of the battles and sieges of the French armies in the reign of Louis XIV are again attributed to these two engravers.[3] Antoine engraved such works, while he was in Paris in the 1740s.[3] According to the Benezit Dictionary of Artists, C. L. Benoist engraved sporting scenes of his design, and at some point returned to Paris.[20]

Notes
  1. Clayton, Timothy; McConnell, Anita. "Benoist, Anthony [Antoine]". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/2133. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. Wixom, William D. (2005). "Medieval Sculpture at the Metropolitan 800 to 1400". The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. 62 (4): 17–18. doi:10.2307/20209200. ISSN 0026-1521. JSTOR 20209200.
  3. Graves, Robert Edmund (1885). "Benoist, Antoine" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 4. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 252.
  4. "Anthony Benoist". British Map Engravers - A Supplement. 15 October 2019.
  5. Barker, Elizabeth E. (2009). "Joseph Wright of Derby's Moonlight Landscape in Cologne". Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch. 70: 181. ISSN 0083-7105. JSTOR 24667670.
  6. Upcott, William (1818). A Bibliographical Account of the Principal Works Relating to English Topography. Vol. 1. R. and A. Taylor. p. 141.
  7. Keymer, Thomas; Keymer, Elmore Fellow and Tutor in English Language and Literature at St Anne's College Oxford and Lecturer in English Language and Literature Thomas; Sabor, Peter; Sabor, Canada Research Chair in Eighteenth-Century Studies and Professor of English Peter (2010). 'Pamela' in the Marketplace: Literary Controversy and Print Culture in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland. Cambridge University Press. p. 143. ISBN 978-0-521-81337-2.
  8. Caulfield, Jon (1996). "Visual Sociology and Sociological Vision, Revisited". The American Sociologist. 27 (3): 60. doi:10.1007/BF02692040. JSTOR 27698784. S2CID 144912409.
  9. Rimbault, Edward Francis (1895). Soho and Its Associations: Historical, Literary & Artistic. Dulau. p. 79.
  10. Gatrell, Vic (2013). The First Bohemians: Life and Art in London's Golden Age. Penguin UK. p. lx. ISBN 978-0-7181-9582-3.
  11. Hone, William (1838). The Every-day Book and Table Book; Or, Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Etc. p. 523.
  12. Mackey, Albert Gallatin (1889). An Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry and Its Kindred Sciences: Comprising the Whole Range of Arts, Sciences and Literature as Connected with the Institution. Everts. pp. 689–690.
  13. Drawings, British Museum Department of Prints and (1877). Catalogue of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum: pt. I. March 28, 1734 to c. 1750. pt. II. 1751 to c. 1760. by order of the Trustees. p. 430.
  14. "Mock Masonry: or the Grand Procession, British Museum". The British Museum.
  15. Drawings, British Museum Department of Prints and (1887). Catalogue of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum: pt. I. March 28, 1734 to c. 1750. pt. II. 1751 to c. 1760. by order of the Trustees. p. 387.
  16. Meyer, Julius (1885). Allgemeines Künstler-Lexicon (in German). Vol. 3. Engelmann. p. 544.
  17. McGeary, Thomas (2002). "Frederick, Prince of Wales, as Print Collector". Print Quarterly. 19 (3): 257 note 34. ISSN 0265-8305. JSTOR 41826042.
  18. "A view of the port and entrance of the city and isle of Malta, British Museum". The British Museum.
  19. "Joseph Goupy: Checklist of Prints, Drawings, and Paintings". The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art. 75 (10): 376–382. 1988. ISSN 0009-8841. JSTOR 25160055.
  20. Bénézit, Emmanuel (1976). Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays (in French). Vol. 1. Gründ. p. 629. ISBN 978-2-7000-0149-5.
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 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1885). "Benoist, Antoine". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 4. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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