French engraver, a pupil of Jeaurat. His talent is characterized by an easy manner and correct drawing. He was approved (agréé) with the Académie. His main plates are after Natoire, Van Loo, Rubens and Poussin. Saint-Aubin and Tilliard were his pupils.
Etienne Fessard was a French reproductive engraver. The Autumn was engraved after a painting from the series Four Seasons by Watteau for a compendium of prints after Watteau: L’oeuvre d’Antoine Watteau (volume I). The painting has been lost for more than two centuries.
The other parts of the series was also engraved: the Spring by Louis Desplaces; the Summer by Marie-Jeanne Renard Dubos; and the Winter by Jean Audran.
Charles-Joseph Natoire decorated the Foundlings’ Chapel opposite Notre-Dame as an immense piece of Italianate trompe-l’oeil: flanking both sides of the representational niche in the middle, the arcades showed processions of the Wise Men; peasant figures appeared above, while a false ceiling depicted a ruined roof in the manner of traditional Nativity scenes (the work of Paolo and Giovanni Brunetti, specialists in trompe-l’oeil effects). The subjects were painted in oils directly onto the walls, which probably explains the rapid deterioration. It was destroyed at the end of the century, but is known from engravings by Fessard.
Fessard made this engraving after a painting by Jean-Baptiste-Sim�on Chardin.
