The Best Portraits in Engraving

as beginning to assert a supremacy in engraving as in literature. The great school of French engravers which appeared at this time brought the art to a splendid perfection, which many think has not been equalled since, so that Masson, Nanteuil, Edelinck, and Drevet may claim fellowship in genius with their immortal contemporaries, Corneille, Racine, La Fontaine, and Molière.

[Illustration: THE SUDARIUM OF ST. VERONICA.

(Engraved by Claude Mellan from his own Design.)]

[Sidenote: Mellan.]

The school was opened by Claude Mellan, more known as engraver than painter, and also author of most of the designs he engraved. His life, beginning with the sixteenth century, was protracted beyond ninety years, not without signal honor, for his name appears among the "Illustrious Men" of France, in the beautiful volumes of Perrault, which is also a homage to the art he practiced. One of his works, for a long time much admired, was described by this author:

"It is a Christ's head, de