Dorigny, Michael

, a painter and engraver, was born at St. Quentin, in France, in 1617, and manifesting an early inclination for the arts, was placed under Simon Vonet, a painter at that time of great reputation, whose daughter he married, and whose manner as a painter he copied, but is better known as an engraver. He performed his plates chiefly with the point, in a bold, powerful style: the lights are broad and massy, especially upon the figures. But the marking of the folds of the draperies, and the shadows upon the outlines of the flesh, are frequently so extravagantly dark, as to produce a harsh, disagreeable effect, and sometimes to destroy the harmony of the engraving entirely. Although he understood the human figure, and in some instances it was correctly drawn; yet by following the manner of Vouet, instead of the simple forms of nature, his outlines were affected, and the extremities of his figures too much neglected. This artist was made professor of the royal academy of painting at Paris, where he died in 1665, aged forty- eight. His works are said by abbe Marolles to have consisted of 105 prints. Amongst these were, “the Adoration of the Magi,” the “Nativity of Christ,” “Venus at her toilet,” “Venus, Hope, and Love, plucking the feathers from the wings of Time,” “Mercury and ther Graces,” and “the Rape of Europa,” all from pictures of Vouet. He also engraved from Le Seur, Sarasin, and other masters. ¹