Auguste Gaspard Louis Desnoyers

Auguste Gaspard Louis, Baron Boucher-Desnoyers (19 December 1779 in Paris – 16 February 1857), was one of the most eminent of modern French engravers.

His father held the office of commissary-general in the military household of Monsieur, afterwards Louis XVIII, but through unforeseen misfortunes young Desnoyers was compelled to choose for himself a career. He elected entrance into the corps of engineers, but he devoted every moment he could spare from the study of mathematics to drawing. At the age of twelve, he was introduced to Lethière, who admitted him into his studio, where Desnoyers soon attracted notice. But the rapid progress he made in drawing was just the means to an end. This end was soon accomplished, for the engraver Darcis, who had seen a Head of a Magdalen, which Desnoyers engraved on tin when scarcely ten years old, took him under his care, and employed him on the outlines of the plates after Carle Vernet, on which he was then engaged. In 1796 an engraving in the dotted style of a Young Bacchante, from a drawing by Grevedon, met with a success far beyond the hopes of the young artist.

He next produced a number of small subjects of similar character, which were well received, and at the Salon of 1799 he exhibited his engraving of Venus disarming Cupid, after Robert Lefèvre, which won a prize of 2000 francs. In this year he entered the studio of Alexandre Tardieu, where he made some studies in etching and line engraving; but an engagement to engrave Hilaire Ledru's Pénibles Adieux did not allow him to remain for any great length of time. The success of his line engraving of "Hope supporting Man to the Tomb," after a sketch by Caraffa exhibited at the Salon of 1801, procured him a commission to engrave for the Musée La belle jardinière of Raphael.

Just at this time Desnoyers was drawn in the conscription, and Lucien Bonaparte went to Napoleon I, his brother, to solicit the artist's exemption. "Has he worked hand in hand with the Republic?" asked the First Consul, in very bad humour. "Yes," said Lucien. "Well, then let him pay if he wishes to be replaced," abruptly replied Napoleon. The council of revision, however, fortunately deemed him unfit for military service, although his constitution left nothing to be desired.

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