Jean Mignon was a French artist in painting and printmaking in the 16th century, active from 1537 to the mid-1550s. He worked in etching, sometimes supplemented by engraving, and was one of the first group of artists in France to use etching for prints.[2] He was part of the burst of activity in the 1540s associated with the First School of Fontainebleau.[3]
At least half of his prints, over thirty,[4] use compositions by the Italian painter Luca Penni, who was also at the palace from 1537 through to the 1540s.[5] Others use designs by Francesco Primaticcio, the leader of the school after the suicide of Rosso Fiorentino in 1540.[6] Mignon's prints number around sixty, with some uncertainty over the authorship of a number.[7]
Nothing is known about his origins or early life. His first documentary appearance is in 1537 in the royal accounts, as a painter at the Palace of Fontainebleau, continuing until 1540; no painting identifiable as his is known, and his etchings form his known oeuvre. His only dated prints are one of 1543, and "five or six" dated 1544; only two prints are signed, one also dated 1544. At some point, like Penni, he moved to Paris, where he is recorded from 1550 until his death in the winter of 1556 to 1557.[8]
