Claude Mellan

Claude Mellan (23 May 1598 – 9 September 1688) was a French draughtsman, engraver, and painter.

Mellan was born in Abbeville, the son of a customs official.

His first known print (Préaud no. 288), made for a thesis in theology at the Collège des Mathurins, shows that he was in Paris by 1619. His first teachers have not been identified, but his early engravings are thought to show the influence of Léonard Gaultier.

In 1624 Mellan went to Rome, where he studied engraving for a brief time with Francesco Villamena, who died that year. He then studied under Simon Vouet, who had been in Rome since 1614. Vouet encouraged Mellan to draw, considering it essential for both engraving and painting. Mellan engraved some of Vouet's works and also began drawing small portraits from life. Many of his portrait drawings were never engraved. He developed a style that was simple and natural, that would be characteristic throughout his later career. Many of his engravings in Rome were reproductive works, including, for example, designs by Pietro da Cortona and Gianlorenzo Bernini. The few after his own designs include Saint Francis de Paul (Préaud no. 77) and the Penitent Magdalene (Préaud no. 113). The plates Mellan engraved in Rome were mostly executed in a conventional manner.

In 1637, after a period of time in Aix-en-Provence with Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, he returned to Paris, where he adopted an idiosyncratic technique, in which, instead of creating shade by cross-hatching, he used a system of parallel lines, regulating tone by varying their breadth and closeness.Joseph Strutt wrote:

The effect, which he produced by this method of engraving, is soft and clear. In single figures, and small subjects, he succeeded very happily; but in large subjects, where great depth of shadow was required, he has failed....

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