SAINT-AUBIN, Charles-Germain de

Draughtsman and etcher, part of a French family of artists. Gabriel-Germain de Saint-Aubin (1696-1756) was the son of an embroiderer (first name unknown) to the Duchesse de Lesdiguières, and was himself an embroiderer for the royal court. Six of his seven children were artists, among them Charles-Germain de Saint-Aubin, Gabriel de Saint-Aubin and Augustin de Saint-Aubin. Another son, Louis-Michel de Saint-Aubin, worked as a designer at the Sèvres porcelain factory. Drawings executed by members of the family are preserved in the Livre des Saint-Aubin (Paris, private collection).

Charles-Germain de Saint-Aubin worked mainly as an ornamental draughtsman and printmaker, producing, according to his own account, more than 40,000 designs for embroiderers, textile weavers and lacemakers (e.g. Paris, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts). Among his more interesting collections of engraved designs is the anthropomorphic Essais de papilloneries imaginaires of 1748. His Premier recueil de chiffres, a collection of imaginative initial letters composed of flowers, ears of corn, rockwork etc., was engraved by Clément-Pierre Marillier and published in 1766.