GATTEAUX, NICOLAS MARIE (French.). Medallist, born at Paris on the 2nd of August, 1751, died there on the 24th of June, 1832 ; pupil of Delorme and Gros ; elected Medallist to the King in 1781. His father was a locksmith in poor circumstances, so that the young artist had to work his way up by perseverance and deter- mination of character. At the age of 17, he was left the sole support of his family, but thanks to his happy disposition and uncommon abilities, he soon obtained a remunerative situation as engraver, and some years after, in 1773, he was introduced to Decotte, Director of the Paris Medal-Mint, and engaged by him. His first medallic work is a portrait of Louis XV., for the Series of Kings of France. To Gatteaux was entrusted the engraving of the Lottery tickets, of the principal Assignats and of the Stamps of the Régie. He is the inventor of an ingenious machine of great service to sculptors. Gatteaux exhibited only once at the Salon, in 1791. His best known medals are : Death of Louis XV. ; — Coronation of Louis XVI. ; — Foundation of a College of Surgeons; — Birth of the Dauphin; — Invention of Balloons by Montgolfier; — Establishment of a Lazzaretto at Marseilles ; — Travels of Lapeyrouse ; — Opening of the Canal of Burgundy; — Federation of the Departments of France ; — Abolition of Privileges; — Passage of the Rhine and Danube by Moreau, in an VIII; — Prize Medal of the French Academy; — Medals for the United States; — Prize Medal of the French School of Medicine, with busts of Ambroise Pare and André Fernel, 1794 (illustrated); — Portrait-medal of Haydn, struck to commemorate the production of his celebrated Oratorio, The Creation ; — Comte de Maurepas ; — d'Alembert ; — Lalande; —.The Three Consuls ; — Seals of the National Assembly, of the Conseil des Anciens, of the Conseil des Cinq-Cents; (var. of various dates) ; — Independence of the United States of America; — F?te des bonnes gens; — Elie de Beaumont; — Conquest of Bavaria; — Horace Gates, 1777; — Anthony Weyne; — John Stewart, 1779; — Reestablishment of the British Roman Catholic College in Paris, 1804(2 var.); — Aerostatic Experiments, 1783 ; — Jetons of Languedoc, 1785; — Jeton of St Jean, 1786; — Generality of Orleans, 1787 ; — Jetons with bust of Louis XVI., 1789 ; — French Republic, 1797, — Ecu of the Republic or Royal Academy of Music, 1799; — Jeton for Normandy; — Appeal Tribunal of Paris ; — Jeton of Bordeaux, with bust of Louis XVI.; — Louis XVI., Assembly of Nobles at Paris, 30th May, 1789; — Louis XVI. and Necker, 1789; — Life-saving Medal to the brave Picard, 1789; — Louis XVI. abandons his Privileges, 1789; — Freedom of the Press, 1789; — The Raynal Agricultural Prize, 1789; — Medals of the Forts du Port aux bleds of Paris, 1789; — Do, of Soissons, 1790; — Confederation of the French, 1790 (4 var.); — Ticket for Civil Commissioners, 1790; — Caisse patriotique of Paris, 1791; — Pattern Six Livre piece of 179 1 (2 var., one illustrated) ; — To Immortality, 1792 ; — Prize Medal for Virtue, LA BONNE M?RE ft var.) ; — Tribunal de cassation of Paris, .1794; — Jetons for the Conseil des Cinq-Cents, 1797; — The French Republic to its Defenders, 1797 ; — The National Lottery, 1797; — Sciences and Arts, 1798; — The School of Medicine of Paris, 1798 ; — Agricultural Medals of Bordeaux, Dijon and Paris, 1798, and 1799 ; — Concert of Amateurs in Paris, 1799 ; — Burgoyne's Surrender at Saratoga, 1777; — Storming of Story Point, N. Y., 1779; — French National Academy of Music, 1804 (2 var.). ; — Munificence of the Commerce of Bordeaux, 1807 ; — The Grand Master of the Imperial University, 1808 (2 var.); — J. Fernel, 1808. This artist usually signed h is name in full; but his signature appears also in very few instances as N.GA. Miel (Notice sur N. M. Gatteaux, Paris, 1832) informs us that Gatteaux engraved no less than 289 medals between 1773 and 1802, and adds: « Les ouvrages de Gatteaux dénotent une imagi- nation vive et brillante, une grande facilité de composition. L'allé gorie dont on a tant abusé, fut toujours employée par lui avec discernement, et s'il y eut souvent recours, ce fut toujours en vue de rendre avec netteté et précision une idée vraie et forte. Ce qu'il y a de remarquable, c'est que sa main ferme et soigneuse ne fut jamais entraînée par la vivacité de son esprit. Prompt ? concevoir, prompt ? exécuter, il n'en imprima pas moins ? ses ouvrages le caract?re de la réflexion. Tous sont rendus avec maturité; tous sont finis avec la plus minutieuse attention. Adroit et entrepre nant, il ne recula jamais devant les difficultés quelles qu'elles fussent; mais son courage, ainsi que son génie, se.nblait croître avec elles. Aussi a-t-il étendu le domaine de son art. Tout ce qu'il a imaginé de nouveau pour perfectionner le mécanisme de la gra vure en médailles, a été généralement adopté, et ce qui, avant lui, paraissait presque impossible, est aujourd'hui d'un usage courant-. » Miel mentions also Gatteaux's invention of a special type of copying machine, which served as a prototype to our present reducing machine. This is his description : « La gravure en médailles n'étant que la sculpture en miniature, l'art du sculpteur ne pouvait ?tre oublié dans les combinaisons du graveur-mécanicien. Personne n'ignore combien l'ébauche d'un marbre est imparfaite et périlleuse par le procédé de la mise ? point. Gatteaux fit une machine qui remplace avantageusement ce délectueux appareil, et qui transporte sur le marbre, avec une précision mathématique, les points correspondants du mod?le, tout en laissant ? l'auteur de la statue la tâche vraiment créatrice de la terminer. Ce mécanisme a obtenu le suffrage de la commission de sculpture de l'Académie des Beaux-Arts ; plusieurs de nos plus habiles statuaires s'en servent pour ébaucher leurs ouvrages; il a valu ? son auteur, en 1819, une médaille d'argent ? l'exposition des produits de l'industrie nationale. » Larousse, in his Grand Dictionnaire, expresses his opinion of the artist in the following manner : « Le burin de Gatteaux est gracieux et délicat. Ses médailles rappellent toutes, ou des faits historiques, ou les traits des personnages illustres. Dans ses grandes médailles il a déployé toutes les qualités d'un statuaire de premier ordre, et jusque dans les plus petites, son style est resté grand, léger et simple. » Commenting on the medallists of the latter end of the eighteenth century, amongst whom N. M. Gatteaux and the Duviviers stand foremost, M. Roger Marx writes : « Tout ? l'heure, ils s'attar- daient avec d'exquises caresses de burin, ? célébrer les rosi?res, la vertu, ? conter par le menu l'existence de Louis XVI, les décou- vertes, les entreprises, le premier or trouvé dans les mines d'Allemont, la construction du canal du Centre, l'invention des aérostats par MM. de Montgolfier... Maintenant, plus d'?uvres m?ries ? loisir, plus de tranquilles images de l'oisiveté royale, plus de sujets ? la Greuze, — La bonne m?re, Le bon chef de famille, Le cultivateur laborieux, — chers ? la vieillesse sentimentale d'un si?cle corrompu. On exigeait d'eux le souvenir hâtif des épisodes multiples de l'agi- tation contemporaine, la figuration des rues, des places avec la houle des foules en mouvement ; on leur demandait de revenir ? l'antique, d'abandonner le style qui avait marqué par l'entente de l'arrangement et le naturel de l'élégance, la médaille française au cours du xvme si?cle. Besogne ardue que de se plier ? la tendance nouvelle! » Bibliography, — Bolzenthal, op. cit. — Betts, American Medals. — Chavignerie et Auvray, op. cit. — Dr F. P. Weber, op. cit. — Thomsen Catalogue. — Hennin, op. cit. — Grande Encyclopédie. — Grand Dictionnaire Larousse. — Marx, Les médailleurs français depuis 1789, Paris, 1897. — Sale Catalogue, etc. — A. Evrard de Fayolle, Histoire numismatique de la Chambre de Commerce de Bordeaux, 1901.
Source: Biographical dictionary of medallists; coin, gem, and seal-engravers, mint-masters, ancient and modern, with references to their works B.C. 500-A.D. 1900; compiled by L. Forrer, London 1904
Source: Biographical dictionary of medallists; coin, gem, and seal-engravers, mint-masters, ancient and modern, with references to their works B.C. 500-A.D. 1900; compiled by L. Forrer, London 1904
FRITZ
FRITZ (Germ.). Die-sinker at Brunswick, circa 1830-1859. By this engraver are the following medals : Erection of the Waterloo Column, 1837; — Adolph Frederick, Duke of Cambridge, 1831 ; — Military Reward of King Ernest Augustus of Hanover, 1837 ; — George, Crownprince of Hanover, 1843 ; — William, Duke of Brunswick, 1838; — Double Thaler of 1856, on the 25th Anni- versary of William's reign; — Thaler of 1859, &c. Apparently this artist was attached to the Brunswick Mint as Coin-ana Medal-engrave...
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FRITZ (Germ.). Die-sinker at Brunswick, circa 1830-1859. By this engraver are the following medals : Erection of the Waterloo Column, 1837; — Adolph Frederick, Duke of Cambridge, 1831 ; — Military Reward of King Ernest Augustus of Hanover, 1837 ; — George, Crownprince of Hanover, 1843 ; — William, Duke of Brunswick, 1838; — Double Thaler of 1856, on the 25th Anni- versary of William's reign; — Thaler of 1859, &c. Apparently this artist was attached to the Brunswick Mint as Coin-ana Medal-engrave...
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FROMENT-MEURICE, CHARLES FRANÇOIS MARIE JACQUES
FROMENT-MEURICE, CHARLES FRANÇOIS MARIE JACQUES (French). A contemporary manufacturing Jeweller of Paris; pupil of Chapu and Patey, who has within the last fifty years produced a large number of gems, camei in Renaissance or modern styles, intagli after the antique, and every variety of artistic jewels. His master piece was the magnificent bust of Napoleon III., cut in aquamarine, and which disappeared in the fire of the old Paris Hôtel-de-Ville, 1871. At the Paris Universal Exhibition, 1900, he...
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FROMENT-MEURICE, CHARLES FRANÇOIS MARIE JACQUES (French). A contemporary manufacturing Jeweller of Paris; pupil of Chapu and Patey, who has within the last fifty years produced a large number of gems, camei in Renaissance or modern styles, intagli after the antique, and every variety of artistic jewels. His master piece was the magnificent bust of Napoleon III., cut in aquamarine, and which disappeared in the fire of the old Paris Hôtel-de-Ville, 1871. At the Paris Universal Exhibition, 1900, he...
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FROULLÉ, ADGUSTE ADOLPHE
FROULLÉ, ADGUSTE ADOLPHE (French). Sculptor and Gem-engrav- er, born at Paris, on the 15th July, 1821; pupil of M. Naigeon. The following exhibits are recorded by Chavignerie et Auvray : S. 1848, Diogenes, shell cameo; — S. 1852, Mars and Venus; — S. 1 86 1, The Death of Hyrnetho, wife of Deiphontes, King of Epidaurus, engraved cameo; — S. 1862, Apollo and Thetis, engraved cameo; — S. 1864, The Prosperity of the Empire, shell cameo; — S. 1866, Alcides conquering Jealousy, cameo; — S. 1869, The O...
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FROULLÉ, ADGUSTE ADOLPHE (French). Sculptor and Gem-engrav- er, born at Paris, on the 15th July, 1821; pupil of M. Naigeon. The following exhibits are recorded by Chavignerie et Auvray : S. 1848, Diogenes, shell cameo; — S. 1852, Mars and Venus; — S. 1 86 1, The Death of Hyrnetho, wife of Deiphontes, King of Epidaurus, engraved cameo; — S. 1862, Apollo and Thetis, engraved cameo; — S. 1864, The Prosperity of the Empire, shell cameo; — S. 1866, Alcides conquering Jealousy, cameo; — S. 1869, The O...
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FRUMERIE, C. M.
FRUMERIE, C. M. (Swed). Die-sinker and Medallist of Stockholm, circa 1801-1843. He worked for the Swedish Court. His signature appears on a medallion of King Charles XIV. John, 1843, and on medals of A. F. Wedenberg, 1820; — Peter Frigel, musician, 1841 ; — The Swedish Royal Family, 1829; — Charles XIII., Protector and for 45 years Grand Master of the Masonic Fraternity of Sweden, 1818; — Coming of age of Crownprince Oscar of Sweden, 1817. This engraver was employed at the Stockholm Mint and was...
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FRUMERIE, C. M. (Swed). Die-sinker and Medallist of Stockholm, circa 1801-1843. He worked for the Swedish Court. His signature appears on a medallion of King Charles XIV. John, 1843, and on medals of A. F. Wedenberg, 1820; — Peter Frigel, musician, 1841 ; — The Swedish Royal Family, 1829; — Charles XIII., Protector and for 45 years Grand Master of the Masonic Fraternity of Sweden, 1818; — Coming of age of Crownprince Oscar of Sweden, 1817. This engraver was employed at the Stockholm Mint and was...
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