Abraham Bosse (1602-1676)

Professions: copperplate engraver

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  DODART, Denis (1634-1707) [and Nicolas ROBERT

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  Abraham Bosse (1602-1676)

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  Abraham Bosse

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  BOSSE, ABRAHAM.

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Abraham Bosse Biography

(b Tours, 1602; d Paris, 1 Feb 1676). French printmaker and writer. He probably trained with Melchior Tavernier (1564–1641) in Paris, and his earliest datable works, a set of four landscapes after Matthäus Merian (i) (1622; Duplessis nos. 1040–43), were published by Tavernier. Le Jardin de la noblesse française (D 1301–18), the first of Bosse’s important print series, was published in 1629. Its 18 plates after Jean de Saint-Igny show fashionably dressed ladies and gentlemen in a domestic environment. After several stays in his native Tours, Bosse settled in Paris in 1632, and from this date onwards his activities were indefatigable. Whatever their subjects, his prints almost invariably show the human figure in contemporary dress, so that such biblical subjects as the parables of the Prodigal Son (D 34–9), Dives and Lazarus (D 40–42) and the Wise and Foolish Virgins (D 43–9; see FRANCE, fig. 44) are direct commentaries on French society. Even such traditional themes as the Five Senses (D 1071–5, see fig.) or the Four Seasons (D 1082–5) are treated as genre subjects, with careful attention given to the costume and surroundings of the bourgeois participants, making them invaluable evidence for the social historian.

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