The Forgotten Fourdrinier
The Life, Times and Work of Paul Fourdrinier, Huguenot Master Printmaker in London (1720–1758)
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As well as being in Tonson's stable of artists, Paul was also involved with (Barnaby) Bernard Lintot (1675-1736 and styled Lintott before 1724). Despite his name perhaps sounding French in origin Bernard was not a Huguenot and the name Lintott and its variants are actually Saxon in origin and date back to before the Norman Conquest. Also, Tonson and Lintot were, most of the time, bitter rivals. Tonson’s and Lintot’s feuds were many and complex and involved dividing the leading writers of the days into two warring camps selling their manuscripts and defaming the opposing publisher in their satirical works. However, to all but the protagonists, this was a side show that did little to affect relationships and business. Paul was not the only person to straddle both camps working for Tonson and Lintot and his son and successor Henry Lintot almost simultaneously, but it speaks to his neutrality and lack of deep involvement with his clients and patrons that he could maintain good relations with both. The primary weapon of literary attack in the early 18th Century was satire. Satire is made up of ridicule and sarcasm not only for entertainment but also to effect political and social change. Fierce, sometimes vicious, absurd and exaggerated it was known to the Romans (the word derives from lanx satura literally meaning a full collection of fruit but practically meaning a basket of derision). Satire needs two things to flourish - freedom of expression (or at least the ability to hide from retribution) and means of distribution, for which the printing press was ideally suited. The forerunners of the newspaper cartoon and the piercing television program were the printed cartoon, the broadsheet and the spoof essay. In 18th Century England there was a fair amount of expressive and political freedom. To be sure if you were openly Roman Catholic, Jewish, female or poor then your freedom was significantly limited, but for a male Protestant or Dissenter of education and some means there were ways of self-expression. If the hypothesis is true that Paul Fourdrinier preferred the background, a low profile existence and security for his family he did not only have to worry about financial ruin but also about becoming collateral damage in the rough and tumble politics of the day. Lintot was, by all accounts, a large and ungainly man who spoke in an explosive splutter of emphasis and profanity. Pope was one of the authors caught up in the feuds and in disputes over payment and copyright, and in his satirical work Dunciad he included an unflattering portrait of Lintot: As when a dab-chick waddles thro' the copse, On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops; So lab'ring on, with shoulders, hands, and head, Wide as a windmill all his figure spread . . . Full in the middle way there stood a lake, Which Curl's Corinna chanc'd that morn to make, (Such was her wont, at early dawn to drop Her evening cates before his neighbour's shop,) Here fortun'd Curl to slide; loud shout the band, And Bernard! Bernard! rings thro' all the Strand. (II 59-70) As with all satire this verse requires a detailed knowledge of the moment and it involved more than one of Pope’s many betes noire. Corinna was, according to Dryden, a Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas who somehow procured some early letters from Pope and sold them to publisher Edmund Curll (1675-1747) who published them in 1727 without permission, outraging Pope . Curll, a west countryman, had risen from poverty to become ultimately wealthy but was known as an unscrupulous scoundrel who lived off of book piracy, scandal, erotica and exposée. In revenge Pope lampooned Curll in the Dunciad but satirical attack invites a satirical response and Curll hit back with a range of titles including The Popiad, The Female Dunciad, and The Twickenham Hotch-Potch all in 1728. Pope responded with the Dunciad Variorum which was followed by Curll’s The Curliad: a Hypercritic upon the Dunciad Variorum. All this goes to illustrate the turbulent waters that Paul had to navigate as a newcomer to London, a young foreigner with a new wife, growing family, and need to support them. Following his life with the brilliant Picart and his Protestant associates all of this may have led Paul to wish for a more stable and more broadly based business and a chance to practice his art in relative peace.
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About the Book
This book is a meticulously researched but very readable story of Huguenot Paul Fourdrinier’s journey from being an apprentice in Holland to a highly recognized printmaker in London in the eighteenth century. Paul is almost forgotten and artistically underrated but was an accomplished copper engraver who founded the English Fourdrinier dynasty, which produced the developers of the Fourdrinier papermaking machine and the mother of Cardinal Newman. The reader will be immersed in his world and his connections to aristocrats, artists, and great projects of the age—including the development of Palladian neoclassical architecture, the Foundling’s Hospital, and the Savannah colony in Georgia—and renowned talents such as the sculptor Rysbrack, painter Hogarth, designer William Kent, and composer George Frederick Handel. As well as the great and powerful, we meet the eccentrics—George Vertue, Horace Walpole, the reverend Stephen Duck, Batty Langley, courtesan Teresia Constantia Phillips, and the curious affair of Mary Toft, who convinced half the nation that she had given birth to rabbits. This was a time of exciting intellectual development. The combination of copper engraving and printing along with the removal of state censorship and the institution of copyright led to a wave of information and learning not dissimilar to the impact of the Internet. The institution of commercial companies and banks foreshadowed the Industrial Revolution and made possible projects such as Charles Labeyle’s first Westminster Bridge, the building of Regency Bath and James Gibb’s Radcliffe Camera in Oxford, all engraved by Fourdrinier on behalf of their creators. In his shop in Whitehall, he developed master engravings of uncommon size and shapes for customers, including the Earls of Burlington and Pembroke, and engraved for Thomas Wright, the astronomer who first defined galaxies, and William Chambers, who propelled Chinese fashion into Georgian design. This is a fascinating book from beginning to end.
About the Author
Peter Simpson is an English historian living in the United States. He graduated from the University of Kent at Canterbury with a History degree in 1970, at which point he had already contributed significantly to a definitive work on the development of naval aviation. Over the years he has continued to study history and collect historical ephemera while also managing a successful business career. That career took him from London to the north of England, then Belgium and finally different locations in the USA while at the same time travelling all over the world. These were opportunities to immerse himself in the history of different culture first hand; there was always a museum or an art gallery close at hand. Discovering the little known work of printmaker Paul Fourdrinier gradually developed into an opportunity to write his first full length book, a work of many years in spare moments in airports and hotels. He lives in Western New York with his wife Donna, two cats and an extensive library.