Gilles Demarteau – Jb Huet – The Young Woman And Her Dog – 18th Century Engraving

Engraving on a blue background depicting a young woman having fun with her dog, in a rural setting. The dog is rearing up on its hind legs and trying to catch the object that the woman is holding above it. She is wearing several petticoats and aprons, and the draperies are admirable.
The illusion of the drawing is almost perfect, reinforced by the polychromy, thanks to the white and pink highlights. The drawing was made by JB Huet and the engraving by Demarteau, as indicated at the bottom of the work. It is placed under a cream marie-louise, in a pretty gilded and stuccoed wooden frame with rounded corners. The whole is in very good condition.

The artists
Jean-Baptiste Huet is a French painter, born in Paris on October 15, 1745 and died in the same city on August 27, 1811.
Jean-Baptiste Huet apprenticed with Charles Dagommer, a member of the Académie de Saint-Luc. He was admitted to the Royal Academy in 1769 as an animal painter.

He exhibited regularly at the Salon until 1789, greatly encouraged by the critics. His taste for engraving then linked him very early on with Gilles Demarteau, who engraved many of Huet's works, thus participating in the dissemination of the compositions of the animal painter.


Gilles Demarteau was born in 1722 in Liège, in the suburb of Avroy, into a family of gunsmiths. Around 1748-1750, he joined his goldsmith brother in Paris, where he would build his career as an engraver and revolutionize the art of printmaking.
Naturalized French, he was received as a master in Paris in 1746. He quickly became friends with the great artists of his time: Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Carle van Loo and especially François Boucher, with whom he became a close friend.

Demarteau revolutionized the art of engraving by perfecting the process of crayon engraving, which he developed in a polychrome version. This innovative technique allowed him to faithfully reproduce the appearance of the original drawings, with their nuances and spontaneity.
On September 2, 1769, he became a member of the Royal Academy and received a pension of 600 livres. He was housed at the Louvre Palace as engraver to the king. This official recognition crowned an exceptional career.

His work includes more than 700 prints, reproducing the creations of Boucher, Jean-Baptiste Huet, Watteau, Greuze and many others. He engraved numerous portraits of remarkable quality, helping to disseminate 18th-century art to a wide audience.

Work visible at the gallery (07240)
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