CALLOT, JACQUES, an eminent engraver, was born at Nanci, in 1592, of a family recently ennobled. His father discountenancing his choice of a profession, be fled from home in order to make his way to Rome, the capital of the fine arts. Falling in with a troop of gipsies, he travelled in their company as far as Florence, where a gentleman, pleased with his ingenuous ardour, placed him with an artist to study ; but he soon left him for Rome. At Rome he met some acquaintances of his family, who compelled him to return home. He ran away a second time, and was a second time brought back, by his elder brother, whom he met at Turin. During his youthful adventures, as the story goes, his morals were preserved uncorrupted, by his constant prayer that he might grow np a good man, excel in his profession, and live to the age of forty-three. He set out a third time, with his father's tardy concurrence, and studied for a long time at Rome. On his way homewards he was detained for many years by Cosmo II. After the death of his patron he returned to Nanci, married, and fixed his residence among his friends. Ho- acquired considerable wealth, and his fame was such that he was invited to witness and perpetuate the events of the siege of Breda, and afterwards the sieges of Rochelle and 11116 ; but he declined to commemorate the subsequent capture of his native place, and likewise refused a pension and lodging at Paris, offered to him by Louis XIII. He died March
28, 3635, of complaints incidental to the practice of his art.
Callot possessed a lively and fertile invention, and he bad a aingular power of enriching a small space with a multitude of figures and actions. He engraved both with the burin and the needle ; but by far his beat works are free etchings, touched with the burin, delicately executed and 'sometimes wonderfully minute. There is a want of unity and breadth of effect in some of his larger engravings; indeed, be never seems to have acquired mastery over the graver, and en graved even fewer pictures than most of his profession, working chiefly from original designs. His principal works are the Sieges,' above-mentioned, tho Miseries of War,' certain 'Festivities at Florence,' and a set of Capricci. He painted a few pictures, but they are extremely rare ; they are of small size on copper, and painted with almost excessive neatness. Vandyck painted his portrait, which has been engraved by Boulonais and Vostermaun. (Feliblen ; Perrault ; De Haldat, &e.)