François Chéreau

François Chéreau, also known as François I Chéreau (20 March 1680 Blois - 16 April 1729 Paris) was an engraver of portraits and reproductions of famous works of art during the reign of Louis XIV.

He was the first son of carpenter Simon Chéreau and his wife Anne Hardouin whose second son, Jacques Chéreau also became an engraver. François I moved to Paris and studied with Gérard Audran and Pierre Drevet. From 1712 to 1713 he did business from the Rue du Foin, in the Parish of Saint Séverin. In 1714, François I Chéreau married 1714 Margueritte Caillou of a mercantile family from Houdan and Paris, with whom he had ten children. Their eldest child, François II Chéreau, was born in 1717.

In 1718 François I received the title of "engraver to the cabinet du roi" and was accepted by the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, after presenting a portrait of the young Louis de Boullongue. Subsequently François I appended the designation "avec priv. du Roy" ("with the King's privilege") to his prints. Prints made for the cabinet of the king were exchanged and exhibited by the king as well as being sold at Chéreau's shop.

Also in 1718, after the death of Audran's widow, Hélène Licherie, François I Chéreau bought "Les Deux Piliers d'Or," collectively the business, premises, presses, supplies and fonds, and put his name on Audran's "Two Pillars of Gold" sign in the Rue des Malthurins Saint Jacques, also known as "Rue Saint-Mathurin Jacques." He began selling part of the Audran catalog of prints as well as his own work. Audren's print catalog was published four times after Audran's own pre-1703 imprint: in 1718 by his widow Hélène Licherie, in 1742 and 1757 by the widow of François I Chéreau, in 1770 by François I's grandson, Jacques-François Chéreau (b 14 October 1742 - d 16 May 1794, son of Francois II Chéreau & Geneviève Marguerite Chéreau and grandson of both François I and his brother Jacques).

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