- NamePeter Paul Benazech
- Sexmale
- Nationality/Datesborn c. 1730, dead after 1783
BiographyPeter-Paul Benazech (c. 1730–after 1783), in the margin of which he declared himself the inventor of engraving ‘imitating coloured wash’. Relegating his roulettes to second place, he had made some finer-grained mattoirs, also known as mushrooms, but he virtually never used chemical aquatint. Like Bonnet, and in contrast to Gautier-Dagoty and Le Blon, he would leave the plate inked in black to be pulled last. He was also astute enough to demand of multiple-plate engraving that it should try to render the effect not of paintings but of gouache drawings or, with a finer web and more transparent inks, watercolours. He specialized in the ‘gallant’ subjects that Pierre-Antoine Baudouin had made fashionable and that Niclas Lafrensen gave him, and the landscapes drawn by Pierre Antoine de Machy and Hubert Robert. The general vogue for this type of engraving encouraged many artists. In Paris the most famous were Charles-Melchior Descourtis, a pupil of Janinet, Laurent Guyot and above all Philibert-Louis Debucourt.
Källa: Grove art