François-Rolland Elluin (5 May 1745, Abbeville – c. 1810, Paris) was a French engraver, notoriously known for his illustrations of erotic scenes.
Life
Le Meursius Francois, ou Entretiens Galans D'Aloysia (1782)
The son of a merchant, he moved at a young age to Paris, where he lived with his relative, the engraver Jacques Firmin Beauvarlet, of whom he became a pupil.[1] There he produced some so-called "serious" prints after François Boucher, Luca Giordano, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, and Charles-François-Adrien Macret; then, introduced into gallant circles, he made many portraits of actors and actresses. He then joined forces with the merchant-bookseller Hubert Martin Cazin and the vignetting artist Antoine Borel to devote himself to the engraving of licentious subjects.
"One cannot refuse to the works illustrated by Borel and Elluin a certain value", write Roger Portalis and Henri Béraldi, while considering that "Elluin's touch is heavy, without enthusiasm". These two art historians also judge his portraits "without great skill or artistic value" and conclude: "Elluin, in short, except in some of his erotic vignettes to which he applied himself particularly, as to a work which pleased him, was only a very ordinary engraver".[1]
Gallery
Jean-Louis La Ruette French singer and composer; after Sébastien Leclerc.
