Personalities Baudet, Étienne

He was born in the small village of Greffier near Vineuil in a peasant family. At an early age, he came to Paris, where he probably studied drawing and painting with Sébastien Bourdon. In 1665, he went to Rome, where he became one of the first twelve students of the French Academy. He was influenced by Cornelis Bloemaert: in his early engravings, made exclusively by a cutter, he imitated his manner. After returning to France in 1675, he was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture for an engraved portrait of Charles Perrault based on the original of Charles Le Brun. In 1686, he was elected a member of the Council of the Academy. In 1693, he received the title of king's engraver, and the following year – an apartment in the Louvre. He began to work in the technique of cutter engraving, later began to combine this method with an etching needle.