Jean-François de Neufforge
1714 - 1791
Jean-François de Neufforge was a Belgian architect and engraver, known for his Recueil elementaire d'architecture, a book of architectural engravings.
Jean-François de Neufforge was born on 1 April 1714 in Comblain-au-Pont, close to Liege, to a family of gentry whose fortunes had declined by the time of his birth due to the revolutions and religious wars that had ravaged the low countries. He had one brother and one sister.
He moved to Paris around 1738.
He studied engraving under Pierre Edmé Babel and architecture under Jacques-François Blondel.
He contributed nineteen engravings to David Le Roy's book The Ruins of the Most Beautiful Monuments of Greece.
It was not until 1755 that he began to become known. At that time he launched on the project that would occupy the rest of his life, the eight folio volumes of the Recueil élémentaire d'architecture...
His planned work was presented to the Academy of Architecture, which approved it on 5 September 1757, and on 27 November 1757 an advertisement appeared in the Année littéraire announcing the work, which had 96 plates, for use by artists, amateurs and students.
Almost all the illustrations were his own work, an immense undertaking.
The Academy encouraged Neufforge with another endorsement in 1758. In February 1762 four volumes divided into 48 six-page sections appeared, soon followed by the fifth volume.
The work was well-received, and was followed by additional volumes in subsequent years.
Eventually the full set, published in Paris between 1757 and 1780, contained 900 engravings of aspects of eighteenth-century architecture, most of which he designed and engraved himself. The engravings cover the full range of buildings of his day and included facades, floor plans, doors, columns, vases, stairways, fireplaces and fences. The book was widely used by architects in the 1700s.
Jean-François de Neufforge died in Paris on 19 December 1791. He had married twice, and left one son, Joseph de Neufforge, born in 1768.
Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023