Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pillement, Jean
PILLEMENT, JEAN (1727–1808), painter, was born at Lyons in 1727, and there commenced his artistic studies, which he completed in Paris. He was for some years employed as a designer in the Gobelins manufactory, and before 1757 came to England, where he resided for some years. Pillement painted landscapes, marine pieces, and genre subjects, which he treated in a theatrical and artificial style, with bright colours and strong effects of light and shade. He worked to some extent in oil, but earned his reputation by his highly finished drawings in crayons and gouache, which, though mainly pasticci, derived from prints after Wouwermans and other Dutch artists, were suited to the taste of the day, and gained much admiration. Charles Leviez, a French dancing-master who had established himself in London and dealt largely in prints and drawings, was an extensive purchaser of Pillement's works, and employed Canot, Woollett, Ravenet, and other able engravers to reproduce them; the plates, two hundred in number, were all published in London between 1757 and 1764, and reissued in Paris by Leviez in a folio volume in 1767. Pillement exhibited with the Society of Artists in 1760, 1761, and 1773.
In the latter year he announced the sale of his pictures and drawings preparatory to his departure for Avignon on account of his health, but he probably revisited England, as he was a contributor to the Free Society's exhibitions in 1779 and 1780. He travelled much about Europe, and the latter part of his life was spent at Lyons, where he died in poverty on 26 April 1808. Examples of Pillement's work are in the Louvre and the galleries at Florence and Madrid. The engravings from his designs include ‘The Four Times of the Day,’ by Canot and Elliot; ‘The Four Seasons,’ by Canot, Woollett, and Mason; ‘La Chasse au Sanglier,’ by Woollett; ‘La Bonne Pêche’ and ‘La Mauvaise Pêche,’ by P. Benazech; ‘Le Gazette de Londres,’ by S. F. Ravenet; four views of the environs of Flushing, by Canot; ‘The Shepherdess’ and ‘The Villagers,’ by W. Smith; and several sets of plates of flowers and decorative Chinese subjects, by J. J. Avril and others. Pillement himself etched some groups of flowers. He held the appointments of painter to Queen Marie Antoinette and Stanislas, king of Poland. His son, Victor Pillement, was an able draughtsman and engraver.
[Edwards's Anecdotes of Painting; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Chavignerie's Dict. des Artistes de l'École Française; Bréghot du Lut's Biographie Lyonnaise, 1839; Nagler's Künstler-Lexikon; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1893.]