Jean-Jacques Thurneysen, un graveur protestant au service des catholiques

• Main Author: Yves Krumenacker
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Laboratoire de Recherche Historique Rhône-Alpes (LARHRA UMR 5190) 2020-03-01
• Series: Chrétiens et Sociétés
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/chretienssocietes/5382

Jean-Jacques Thurneysen (1636-1711), a Basel-based engraver of the Reformed faith, worked in Lyon from 1656 to 1659 and then from 1662 to 1681, in Turin (1659-1661), Vienna (1695-1697), Prague, Nuremberg, Augsburg and Basel. He was married to Marie Armet, from a renowned Protestant family in Bourg-en-Bresse; the couple had seven children, all born in Lyon. He wass closely linked to the Protestant merchants and pastors of Lyon. But he mainly worked for Catholic sponsors. He has engraved many representations of saints, biblical figures, religious allegories, subjects of piety, and portraits of Catholic clergymen or political authorities. He collaborated with merchants of Catholic prints, he disseminated by engraving the works of Thomas Blanchet. It illustrated theses and plays from the Jesuit College of Lyon, as well as works by Father Menstrier. However, the reformed discipline prohibits the promotion of the religious use of images. But Thurneysen seems never to have been worried about it. Everything happens as if a total dissociation between faith and professional activity were allowed.