In France there is little of significance in portrait engraving during the sixteenth century. THOMAS DE LEU and LÉONARD GAULTIER based their style upon the miniature portrait engravers of the Northern School, such as the WIERIX. Although their graver work is often quite beautiful, it lacks originality, and when, as frequently happened, they endeavored to interpret the wonderful drawings of the Clouets or Dumonstier, they signally failed in capturing the charm of their originals. CLAUDE MELLAN, who was born at Abbeville in 1598, is, in a sense, the fountain-head of French portrait engraving. His work is characteristically French, in that it is the result of a system carefully worked out to its logical conclusion. In his desire to keep strictly within the limits of what he considered to be the proper province of engraving, he carried his insistence upon line to a point which borders on mannerism and which, for over two centuries, has militated against his full recognition. Mellan’s earliest engravings recall the work of Léonard Gaultier, but his first teacher is not known. Dissatisfied with his instruction in Paris, in 1624 he went to Rome where, while studying engraving under Villamena, he came under the influence of the French painter, Simon Vouet, who not only provided his protégé with drawings to engrave, but persuaded him to base all his training upon a thorough ground-work of drawing. It is this severe training as a draughtsman which lies at the foundation of Mellan’s style. His original drawings were executed in pencil, silver-point, or chalk, and in his engravings he preserves all the delicate and elusive charm of his originals. [Illustration: CLAUDE MELLAN. VIRGINIA DA VEZZO Size of the original engraving, 4½ × 3 inches In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston] [Illustration: CLAUDE MELLAN. FABRI DE PEIRESC Size of the original engraving, 8⅜ × 5⅝ inches In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]