Jean Bérain the Elder
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Jean Bérain the Elder (born 1638 or 1639 in Saint-Mihiel (Meuse); died January 24, 1711 in Paris) was a draughtsman and designer, painter and engraver of ornament. Born in the Austrian Netherlands, he spent his career at Paris.
In 1674 he was appointed dessinateur de 10 cha. et du cabinet de Roi, in succession to Gissey, whose pupil he is believed to have been. From 1677 onward he had workrooms and an apartment in the Louvre near to those of André Charles Boulle, for whom he made many designs for furniture. After the death of Le Brun Bérain was commissioned to compose and supervise the whole of the exterior decoration of the king's ships.
He was inventive and industrious, and assimilated and adapted Raphaelesque arabesque ornament to the taste of the time; he furnished designs for the decorations and costumes used in the opera performances, for court festivals, and for public solemnities such as funeral processions, and inspired the ornamentations of rooms and of furniture to such an extent that a contemporary French writer says that nothing was done during his later years which he had not designed, or at least which was not in his manner.
His numerous designs were for the most part engraved under his own superintendence, and a collection of them was published in Paris in 1711 by his son-in-law, Thuret, clockmaker to the king. There are three books, L'Oeuvre de J. Bérain, Ornements inventés par J. Bérain and Oeuvres de J. Bérain contenant des ornements d'architecture. His earliest known works show him as engraver of twelve plates in the collection Diverses pieces de serrurerie inventés par Hughes Brisville et gravés par Jean Bérain (Paris, 1663), and in 1667 ten plates of designs for the use of gunsmiths. M. Guilmard in Les Maîtres ornemanistes, gives a complete list of his published works.
His son and pupil, Jean Bérain the Younger, (1678-1726), was born and died in Paris. He exercised the same official functions after his death and worked in a very similar taste..
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