Jean-François de Neufforge | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1 April 1714 |
| Died | 19 December 1791 (aged 77) |
| Nationality | Belgian |
| Occupation(s) | Architect, engraver |
| Known for | Recueil elementaire d'architecture |
Jean-François de Neufforge (1 April 1714 – 19 December 1791) was an architect and engraver, known for his Recueil elementaire d'architecture, a book of architectural engravings. He was born in the Holy Roman Empire.
Jean-François de Neufforge was born on 1 April 1714 in Comblain-au-Pont, close to Liege, to a family of gentry whose fortunes had declined by the time of his birth due to the revolutions and religious wars that had ravaged the low countries. He had one brother and one sister. He moved to Paris around 1738. [1] He studied engraving under Pierre Edmé Babel and architecture under Jacques-François Blondel. He contributed nineteen engravings to David Le Roy's book The Ruins of the Most Beautiful Monuments of Greece. [2]
It was not until 1755 that he began to become known. At that time he launched on the project that would occupy the rest of his life, the eight folio volumes of the Recueil élémentaire d'architecture... [1] His planned work was presented to the Academy of Architecture, which approved it on 5 September 1757, and on 27 November 1757 an advertisement appeared in the Année littéraire announcing the work, which had 96 plates, for use by artists, amateurs and students. Almost all the illustrations were his own work, an immense undertaking. The Academy encouraged Neufforge with another endorsement in 1758. [3]
In February 1762 four volumes divided into 48 six-page sections appeared, soon followed by the fifth volume. The work was well-received, and was followed by additional volumes in subsequent years. [4] Eventually the full set, published in Paris between 1757 and 1780, contained 900 engravings of aspects of eighteenth-century architecture, most of which he designed and engraved himself. The engravings cover the full range of buildings of his day and included facades, floor plans, doors, columns, vases, stairways, fireplaces and fences. The book was widely used by architects in the 1700s. [5]
Jean-François de Neufforge died in Paris on 19 December 1791. He had married twice, and left one son, Joseph de Neufforge, born in 1768. [6]
Neufforge's designs were intended for a wide range of people, from the middle class to the extremely wealthy. [7] Most of his work was in the Rococo style. [8] His work on the engravings for Le Roy's Les Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce brought him into contact with Jean-François Le Lorrain, whose influence shows in the earlier volumes of the Recueil elementaire which included all the elements of the Greek revival style. His later work, however, banished these influences and showed that Neufforge had adopted the views of Marie-Joseph Peyre and Andrea Palladio. The later designs, with cubic houses, flat undecorated exterior walls, prostyle porticos and other elements gave clear evidence of borrowings from English Palladianism. [9]
His work was highly geometrical. Thus a design that he made of a temple exactly matched tiling designed by Kepler. [10] Even his designs for small bourgeois gardens were elegant and geometrical. [11] Neufforge was not interested in the practicality of his designs, but mainly concerned with style and appearance. [7] The Journal de Trévoux announced the fifth volume in February 1762, describing the work as being in good taste with mature composition, invention subordinated to the rules, avoiding frivolous, bizarre or singular elements. [4]
Mathurin Jacques Brisson was a French zoologist and natural philosopher.
Jean Antoine Letronne was a French archaeologist.
Ferdinand Berthoud, was a scientist and watchmaker. He became master watchmaker in Paris in 1753. Berthoud, who held the position of Horologist-Mechanic by appointment to the King and the Navy, left behind him an exceptionally broad body of work, in particular in the field of marine chronometers.
Claude Fauchet was a sixteenth-century French historian, antiquary, and pioneering romance philologist. Fauchet published the earliest printed work of literary history in a vernacular language in Europe, the Recueil de l'origine de la langue et poësie françoise (1581). He was a high-ranking official in the governments of Charles IX, Henri III, and Henri IV, serving as the president of the Cour des monnaies.
Charles Sorel, sieur de Souvigny was a French novelist and general writer.
Nicolas Coeffeteau was a French theologian, poet and historian born at Saint-Calais.
Nicolas Lémery, French chemist, was born at Rouen. He was one of the first to develop theories on acid-base chemistry.
Marcus Vulson de la Colombière or Sieur de la Colombière was a French heraldist, historian, poet and member of the royal court. His name is sometimes spelled as Wulson or Volson.
Saint-Lazare Prison was a prison in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, France. It existed from 1793 until 1935 and was housed in a former motherhouse of the Vincentians.
Michel de Marolles, known as the abbé de Marolles, was a French churchman and translator, known for his collection of old master prints. He became a monk in 1610 and later was Abbot of Villeloin (1626–1674). He was the author of many translations of Latin poets and was part of many salons, notably that of Madeleine de Scudéry. He is best known for having collected 123,000 prints - this acquisition is considered the foundation of the cabinet of prints in the royal library, though it was only constituted as a department in 1720.
Antoine-François Delandine, was a French writer.
Louis Puissant was a French topographical engineer, geodesist, and mathematician.
André-Joseph Panckoucke was a French author and bookseller. He was the first of the Panckoucke family directly or indirectly involved in French publishing.
Barthélemy de Laffemas was an economist, born in Beausemblant, France in 1545. He is officially recorded as dying in Paris in 1612. However, it is rumoured that he actually died on September 23, 1611, after falling from his horse. He is known as the first person to write about underconsumption
Jean-Baptiste François Rozier was a French botanist and agronomist.
Jean Marot was a French architect and engraver of architectural views. Little has survived of his own architectural work, but his engravings of the works of others, primarily those published in the volumes referred to as the Petit Marot and the Grand Marot (1686), were highly esteemed by his contemporaries and remain, despite numerous inaccuracies and distortions, among the most important sources concerning architecture in France up to the early part of the reign of Louis XIV.
Louis-Joseph Lavallée marquis de Boisrobert, called Joseph Lavallée was an 18th–19th-century French polygraph and man of letters.
The Lords of Saventhem and Sterrebeke, currently Zaventem and Sterrebeek, were two Heerlijkheden in Flanders. The lords of Zaventem resided in Ter Meeren Castle.
François Raguenet was a French historian, biographer and musicologist.
Charles Chamois was a 17th-century French architect from Paris.
Citations
Sources
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
