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Jean-François Janinet (French, 1752-1814)
Vertumne et Pomone and Zephire et Flore, after Antoine Coypel (French, 1661-1722)
Color etching and engraving, printed from multiple plates, with yellow, red, blue, black and gold inks, 1776
Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Fund

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The second half of the 18th-century was the heyday of French color printmaking, and one of the leading practitioners was Jean-François Janinet. This pair of color prints, inspired by the Metamorphoses of Ovid as interpreted by the painter, Antoine Coypel, shows Janinet at his most skillful. The central subjects, an allegory of Spring paired with an allegory of Autumn, are bordered with elaborate trompe l’oeil gold frames. To evade the French Government’s restrictions limiting the sale of gold-leaf in France, Janinet, following the precedent set by his teacher, Louis-Marin Bonnet, marketed these prints as English imports, signing his prints with a false name (“Engraved by H. Bzzi London 1776”), and providing English titles and a London printseller’s address.

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