page_title: Jean-Baptiste Pillement
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Jean-Baptiste Pillement / Life
caption_attribution_description: English: Print, 1755, Jean Pillement (designer and engraver) V&amp;A Museum no. 28639A Techniques - Etching, ink on paper Place - London, England Dimensions - Height 37.5 cm (paper), Width 22.7 cm Object Type - This print is an etching, made by using acid to burn lines into a metal plate that are then filled with ink. The plate is then pressed onto paper, which transfers the image. Ever since the various East India Companies had begun to introduce porcelain and other exotic oriental goods to Europe in the 17th century, East Asia had fascinated Europeans.This print is the title-page to A New Book of Chinese Ornaments (1755), the first pattern book of Chinoiserie designs by the French painter and designer Jean-Baptiste Pillement (1728-1808). This print demonstrates how Pillement adapted traditional French Rococo ornament to his own idea of Chinese patterns suited to British taste. The curving foliage ladder is a typically French Rococo shape and recalls so-called Grotesques (decorative patterns full of sinuous lines, cloudy foliage, monkeys, sphinxes and other fancies) by the French master Jean Bérain (1639-1711). The wispy pavilion seemingly suspended in space, the monkey and cup of tea balanced on a branch, a Chinese man teetering on a C-shaped scroll, these are all characteristic of Pillement's work and suggest a fantastic, airy world, one that the artist delighted in portraying. Time - The elegant Chinoiserie style adopted by Pillement had already been developed in France by artists such as Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) and François Boucher (1703-1770). In Britain Pillement's work was very influential and widely used. His patterns have been identified on lacquered and marquetry furniture, silver, enamels, textiles, porcelain and earthenware.
context_page_description: Jean-Baptiste Pillement was a painter and designer, known for his exquisite and delicate landscapes, but whose importance lies primarily in the engravings done after his drawings, and their influence in spreading the Rococo style and particularly the taste for chinoiserie throughout Europe.
context_section_description: Pillement had an unusually cosmopolitan career.  He was born and died in Lyon.  In 1743, at the age of 15, he moved from Lyon to Paris where he was employed as an apprentice designer at the Gobelin factory.  In 1745 he left for Spain, where he remained for 5 years.  There he found employment in various cities as both a designer and painter.  A landscape dated 1748 reveals rustic themes he was to repeat often: sun bathed shepherds leading their goats and sheep to a cascading stream, a water mill, rocky elevations covered in lush vegetation, and the poeticized relics of an ancient bridge.  In 1750, at the age of 22, he moved to Lisbon, where he enjoyed continuing success.  The lure of travel compelled him to decline an offer to become First Painter to King Joseph of Portugal, and in 1754 he left Lisbon for London.
  Pillement then spent eight years in England, fully exploiting the English taste for landscapes. There he was inspired by the paintings of, among others, Nicolaes Berchem.  During this period he became acquainted with David Garrick, the famous actor, and his Austrian wife Eva Maria Weigel, who became avid collectors of his work. In 1763 Pillement then traveled to Vienna, where he was employed at the Imperial Court of Maria Theresa and Francis I. In 1765 he left Vienna for Warsaw, where his many projects included decorating the Royal Castle in Warsaw and the Ujazdowski Castle, his largest project, commissioned by the king of Poland Stanisław II Augustus. He also later worked in Saint Petersburg, the Piedmont, Milan, Rome and Venice. 1768-1780 Pillement again worked in France, where he was employed by Marie Antoinette in the Petit Trianon.  1780-1789 he was once again on the Iberian Peninsula, and in 1789 moved to Pézenas in the Languedoc.  In 1800 he returned to Lyon, where he continued to paint while also designing for the silk industry and giving lessons in the Academy founded by Napoleon. He remained in his native Lyon until his death in 1808.
  Pillement's illustrations are a mixture of fantastic birds, flora & fauna, large human figures and chinoiserie. He often worked with print makers such as Anne Allen (artist). His designs were used by engravers and decorators on porcelain and pottery, but also on textiles, wallpaper and silver. Pillement had discovered in 1764 a new method of printing on silk with fast colours (recorded in his Memoirs). One of his prime vehicles was the single print marketed independently of an album. He published many albums, one is: Œùvre de fleurs, ornements, cartouches, figures et sujets chinois (1776).
  The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (British Columbia), the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Courtauld Institute of Art (London), the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Indiana University Art Museum (Bloomington, Indiana), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City), Museum der bildenden Künste (Leipzig, Germany), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), Palazzo Pitti (Florence), Gulbenkian Museum (Lisbon, Portugal) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art are among the public collections holding work by Jean-Baptiste Pillement.
caption: Print, 1755, Jean Pillement (designer and engraver) V&A Museum no. 28639A
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