Plate Eleven from Nouveavx Desseins D'Arquebvseries

Art Historical Context

This engraving, Plate Eleven from *Nouveaux Desseins d’Arquebuseries*, was created around 1749 by Gilles Demarteau, a skilled French printmaker active in Paris. Produced as part of a pattern book of ornamental designs for firearms, the work belongs to the department of Arms and Armor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Demarteau’s engraving technique allowed intricate motifs to be precisely reproduced for gunmakers, transforming functional weapons into luxurious objects of art during the mid-eighteenth century. The plate features dynamic scenes incorporating horses, dogs, birds, and battle imagery, typical of the period’s taste for elaborate hunting and martial decoration. Such designs were often intended for inlay or engraving on gun stocks and barrels, reflecting the era’s blend of military prestige and refined craftsmanship under Louis XV. As a work on paper, this engraving highlights how printed pattern books disseminated artistic styles across Europe, influencing both decorative arts and the evolving aesthetics of arms production in Enlightenment France.

About the Artist

Gilles Demarteau · 1729–1776

Gilles Demarteau the Elder, born on January 19, 1722, in Liège, began his career steeped in the craft of metalwork. The son of a gunsmith, he learned engraving and goldsmithing from his father before moving to Paris around 1748–1750 to join his brother, who worked as a goldsmith for the engraver De Lacollombe, renowned for firearm ornament designs. Demarteau trained in De Lacollombe's workshop as ...