Jean Mariette

Jean Mariette (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ maʁjɛt]; 22 June 1660 – 19 September 1742)^[1] was a French engraver and print dealer and publisher. He was the father of Pierre-Jean Mariette.^[2]

Antoine Pesne, Jean Mariette, 1723, oil on canvas. Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

Ancestry and early life

Jean Mariette was born in Paris,^[3] the son of Pierre II Mariette (1634–1716) and grandson of Pierre I Mariette (1596–1657), both wealthy print publishers.^[2]

He studied drawing, painting, and engraving with his brother-in-law Jean-Baptiste Corneille, but after Charles Le Brun saw some of his engravings and advised him to focus on that, he stopped painting.^[3]

After his father's death, he took over one of the family's print businesses, the 'Librairie des Colonnes d'Hercule', whereas his older brother, Pierre-Joseph Mariette (1656–1729), inherited the business at the sign of 'L'Espérance'. Both were on the rue Saint-Jacques, Paris.^[2]

Print publishing

The courtyard façade of the corps de logis of the single-floor residence Hôtel Chanac de Pompadour, later called Hôtel de Besenval, according to the plans of 1704 by Pierre-Alexis Delamair (engraving published by Jean Mariette in 1727).

Over the course of his career he published almost 900 prints,^[2] including 35 reproductions of paintings by artists such as Nicolas Poussin, Domenico Zampieri, Charles Le Brun, Michel Corneille the Younger, Louis Chéron, Antoine Dieu, Guido Reni, A. Caracci, Sébastien Bourdon, Giovanni Contarini, and Anthony van Dyck.^[3]

In 1727 Jean Mariette published three volumes under the title L'Architecture françoise, a collection of plans, elevations, and cross sections of French buildings, which is one of the most important sources concerning French classical architecture.^[2][4][5]

According to the architectural historian Emil Kaufmann, the majority of these prints were designed and engraved by Jacques-François Blondel (who published his own Architecture françoise in 1752–1756), although other engravers, including Pierre Lepautre, Antoine Hérisset [fr], and Claude Lucas, and other designers, such as Delamonce, J. M. Chevotet, P. C. Prevostel, and Pineau, were also involved.^[6] A fourth volume, published the same year under the same title, was a reedition of the Grand Marot, and a fifth volume in a larger format was published in 1738.^[4][6]