Noel
Le Mire
(b Rouen, 20 Nov 1724; d
Paris, 20 March 1801).
French engraver. He began his studies at the Ecole de Dessin in
Rouen, which opened in 1740. Around 1746 he proceeded to Paris to
continue his studies in the studio of Jacques-Philippe Lebas,
becoming one of his best students; in 1750 he won the first prize
for life drawing. He was admired both for the quality of his work
and for his serious character and was made a member of several
academies including those of Vienna, Rouen and Lille. He engraved
many seascapes after Claude-Joseph Vernet, paintings by David
Teniers and a number of portraits. However, he was most important as
an engraver of illustrations, and through his certainty of line and
the beauty of his printing he contributed to the perfection of the
vignette as an art form. He interpreted drawings by Charles Eisen,
Charles Nicolas Cochin , Hubert-François Gravelot and Jean-Michel
Moreau. Among the more important works on which he collaborated are
Boccaccio’s Decameron, after drawings by Gravelot (Paris,
1757–60); Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Paris, 1767–71) and
Montesquieu’s Temple de Gnide (Paris, 1772), after drawings
by Eisen; and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Oeuvres completes
(Paris, 1774), after designs by Moreau.
