Amour tu Fais des Jaloux and Tu Blesses et Souvent ne Guerris pas

Jean-Francois Janinet after Francois Boucher
a. Amour tu Fais des Jaloux
b. Tu Blesses et Souvent ne Guerris pas
Paris, Bassan et Poignant, c. 1788
Etchings printed in black and three colours from four plates
Plate a. 230 x 190mm
Plate b. 200 x 150 mm trimmed within platemark and publication line.
£1200 the pair
A pair of rare colour prints by the innovative French printmaker Jean-Francois Janinet (1752 – 1814).
This beautiful pair of etchings by Janinet show cupid together with a bather in a wooded glade setting, the designs in oval set within a rectangular etched border.
Although the subtle gradations of colour in Janinet’s prints are often described as having been achieved by aquatint, close scrutiny reveals that his method depended entirely on the chalk-manner print making tools he had learned to use while working for Bonnet, modifying this technique to give dense clusters of minute points leaving a delicatedly textured surface capable of catching just enough ink to print in filmy layers of colour. The startling effect of the shimmering colours would surely have become one of Janinet’s hallmarks had he continued to produce such seductive plates. Instead, he abandoned this genre during the Revolution and turned his attention to more news-worthy events.