Francoise Abraham

Abraham Bosse was a French artist, mainly as a printmaker in etching, but also in watercolor. He was born to Huguenot (Calvinist) parents in Tours, France, where his father had moved from Germany. His father was a tailor, and Bosse's work always depicted clothes in loving detail. He married Catherine Sarrabat at Tours in 1632. Bosse remained a Huguenot, dying before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but was happy to illustrate religious subjects to Catholic taste. Roughly 1600 etchings are attributed to him, with subjects including daily life religion, literature, history, fashion, technology and science. Most of Bosse's output was illustrations for books, but many were also sold separately. His style grows from Dutch and Flemish art but is given a strong French flavor. Many of his images give informative detail about middle and upper-class daily life in the period, although they must be treated with care as historical evidence. Bosse's combination of very carefully depicted grand interiors with relatively trivial domestic subjects was original and highly influential on French art, and also abroad, William Hogarth's engravings are, among other things, a parody of the style. Most of his images are perhaps best regarded as illustrations rather than art. He was apprenticed in Paris about 1620 to the Antwerp-born engraver Melchior Tavernier (1564–1641), who was also an important publisher. Bosse's first etchings date to 1622 and are influenced by Jacques Bellange. Following a meeting in Paris about 1630, he became a follower of Jacques Callot, whose technical innovations in etching he popularised in a famous and much translated Manual of Etching (1645), the first to be published. Bosse took Callot's highly detailed small images to a larger size and a wider range of subject matter. Unlike Callot, his declared aim, in which he largely succeeded, was to make etchings look like engravings, to which end he sacrificed willingly the freedom of the etched line, whilst certainly exploiting to the full the speed of the technique. Like most etchers, Bosse frequently used the engraving on a plate in addition to etching but produced no pure engravings.

Encompassing centuries of change in Europe between 1300 and 1800, from booms of prosperity to bloody revolutions, Old Masters describes a wide range of artists. The informal term was derived from the title of an artist who trained in a guild long enough to become a master, such as Leonardo da Vinci, who studied in a Florence painters’ guild. However, Old Masters paintings, prints and other art is now used to refer to work made by any artist with a high level of skill in painting, drawing, sculpture or printmaking who worked during this era.

The 15th century’s expansive trade and commerce spread culture across borders. A vibrant period of art emerged, bolstered by studies of anatomy and nature that influenced a new visual realism. From Raphael and Michelangelo in the Renaissance to Rembrandt van Rijn and Johannes Vermeer in the Dutch Golden Age, artists expressed emotion, naturalism, color and light in new ways. El Greco and Paolo Veronese were leaders in the dramatic style of Mannerism, while Caravaggio and Peter Paul Rubens demonstrated the movement and meticulous detail of Baroque art.

Historically, most attention was concentrated on male artists, but recent research and exhibitions have elevated the impactful work of women such as Rachel Ruysch and Artemisia Gentileschi. In late-18th-century France, female artists like Adélaïde Labille-Guiard and Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun were prominent names. Nevertheless, access to the academies and guilds was highly restricted for women, and even those able to establish practices were expected to adhere to portraits and still lifes rather than the grand history paintings being created by men.

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Bring energy and an array of welcome colors and textures into your space by decorating with figurative fine-art prints and works on paper.

Figurative art stands in contrast to abstract art, which is more expressive than representational. The oldest-known work of figurative art is a figurative painting — specifically, a rock painting of an animal made over 40,000 years ago in Borneo. This remnant of a remote past has long faded, but its depiction of a cattle-like creature in elegant ocher markings endures.

Since then, figurative art has evolved significantly as it continues to represent the world, including a breadth of works on paper, including printmaking. This includes woodcuts, which are a type of relief print with perennial popularity among collectors. The artist carves into a block and applies ink to the raised surface, which is then pressed onto paper. There are also planographic prints, which use metal plates, stones or other flat surfaces as their base. The artist will often draw on the surface with grease crayon and then apply ink to those markings. Lithographs are a common version of planographic prints.

Figurative art printmaking was especially popular during the height of the Pop art movement, and this kind of work can be seen in artist Andy Warhol’s extensive use of photographic silkscreen printing. Everyday objects, logos and scenes were given a unique twist, whether in the style of a comic strip or in the use of neon colors.

Explore an impressive collection of figurative art prints for sale on 1stDibs and read about how to arrange your wall art.