Personalities Le Veau (Leveau), Jean-Jacques André

He was born in the family of a shoemaker. Due to the difficult financial situation and illness of the child, the nuns of the monastery of St. Magdalena in Rouen took care of him. In 1746-1750, Leveau was a student of Jean-Baptiste Descamps at the free drawing school founded by the latter in Rouen. In 1748, he studied with a silver engraver named Couvel, from whom he acquired skills as a metal cutter. Under the guidance of Descamps, he created his first reproduction engravings (in particular, a portrait of Philippe de Champaigne based on an engraved original by Gérard Edelinck). Thanks to the patronage of Descamps, Leveau entered the Paris workshop of the famous engraver J. P. Lebas, where he studied for four years (1750-1754). After graduating from Lebas, he worked for some time in Rouen. Since the beginning of the 1760s – in Paris. In 1775, he was elected a member of the Rouen Academy of Sciences, Literature and Arts. In addition to reproduction works, he made many book illustrations.