Jacques Philippe Le Bas (1707–1783)

• Was a French engraver.
• His father was a wig-maker, and his family was very poor, so he was educated by his mother.
• When he showed some aptitude for drawing, she placed him in an apprenticeship with the architect and engraver, Antoine Hérisset.
• He met the financier and art collector, Pierre Crozat, who was engaged in a project to have all the paintings in his collection engraved.
• Le Bas was commissioned to provide some of them.
• In 1733, he was hired by Charles Parrocel to provide the chapter heading illustrations for L'école de Cavalerie, by François Robichon de la Guérinière.
• That same year, he married Élisabeth Duret.
• He established a training workshop.

• This became his primary source of income.

• His students included most of the famous engravers in France, as well as two Englishmen, Robert Strange and William Wynne Ryland.

• In 1735, the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture gave him permission to reproduce the works of its members.

• He was admitted to the Académie in 1743. 

• Also became a member of the Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Rouen in 1748. 

• He became an official Advisor to the Académie Royale in 1771, which gave him the right to collect a pension.

• In 1782, King Louis XVI appointed him Court Engraver to the Cabinet des Médailles.

• He died, aged seventy-five, in 1783.

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