Laurent Cars

Portrait of Laurent Cars by Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, pastel, 1745, now at the Louvre.

Laurent Cars was a French designer and engraver, born at Lyons in 1699. He was the son of Jean-François Cars, who took him when quite young to Paris, where it was not long before he distinguished himself. In 1733 he was received as an Academician upon his portraits of Michel Anguier and Sébastien Bourdon. Cars, who was the master of Beauvarlet, may be considered as one of the best French engravers of the 18th century, in the kind of subjects he selected. He died in Paris in 1771. His best plates are those engraved after Lemoyne, particularly that of 'Hercules and Omphale,' and the series of illustrations after Boucher's designs to the Comedies of Molière, and after Oudry to the Fables of La Fontaine. His work is extensive; the following are his principal plates:

Portraits

Raymond du Puy de Provence, portrait from circa 1725.

• Louis XV, an allegorical portrait; after Lemoyne.
• Louis XV, an allegorical subject; after Boucher.
• Stanislaus, King of Poland; after van Loo.
• Michel Anguier, sculptor; after Revel.
• Cardinal Armand Gaston de Rohan; after Rigaud.
• Marie Leszczinska, Queen of France; after Van Loo.
• François Boucher, painter; after Cochin, fils.
• Jean Baptiste Chardin, painter; after the same.
• Madame Chardin; after the same.
• Mlle. Camargo, dancing; after Lancret.
• Mlle. Clairon, in the part of Medea.

Subjects after various masters

Iris at the bath, 1731, after Lemoyne.

• The Adoration of the Shepherds; after Van Loo.
• The Flight into Egypt; after the same.
• Bathsheba at the Bath; after De Troy.
• Susannah and the Elders; after the same.
• Adam and Eve in Paradise; after Lemoyne.
• Hercules and Omphale; after the same.
• Perseus and Andromeda; after the same.
• The Sacrifice of Iphigenia; after the same.
• Hercules and Cacus; after the same.
• Iris at the Bath; after the same. (pictured)
• Cephalus and Aurora; after the same.
• The Rape of Europa; after the same.
• Time discovering Truth; after the same.
• Monument in honour of the Duke of Marlborough.
• Silence; after Greuze.
• L'Aveugle trompé, after the same.
• The Fortune-teller; after Watteau.
• The Venetian Festival; after the same.
• A Convoy of Equipages; after the same.

References

This article incorporates text from the article "CARS, Laurent" in Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers by Michael Bryan, edited by Robert Edmund Graves and Sir Walter Armstrong, an 1886–1889 publication now in the public domain.

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