Callot, Jacques << ka LOH, zhahk >> (1592-1635), was a major French printmaker. He made over 1,400 etchings of beggars, court festivals, landscapes, theater performances, battle scenes, religious subjects, and fashionable aristocrats. Many of his etchings are crowded with tiny figures and amusing details. Callot also made important improvements in the technique of etching.
Callot was born in Nancy, in the historical province of Lorraine, and studied etching in Italy. In 1614, he became an artist for the famous Medici family of Florence. Callot returned to Lorraine in 1621, during the Thirty Years’ War between Protestants and Roman Catholics. He made a series of 18 etchings that showed the effects of the war on the province. These etchings make up one of his most famous works, The Miseries and Misfortunes of War (1633). Callot died on March 25, 1635.
