Jacques Philippe Lebas

1707–1783, Paris

Jacques Philippe Lebas was taught at an early age by the architectural engraver, Antoine Hérisset, and encouraged by Nicolas-Henri Tardieu and Pierre Crozat, from whose collection he engraved paintings. Lebas was admitted to the Academy in 1743 and appointed Graveur du Cabinet du Roi a year later. He worked after his own designs and reproduced works by Teniers and other 17th century Dutch artists as well as by contemporaries such as Wattau, Lancret, Boucher, Greuze, Chardin, Lorrain and many others. Together with Cochin he produced the series Les Ports de France after Vernet in 1760–67. Lebas exerted considerable influence as the teacher of some of the foremost engravers of the second half of the 18th century, among them Charles Nicolas Cochin the Younger, Simon François Ravenet, Jean-Michel Moreau, Reinier Vinkeles and William Wynne Ryland.