Félix Henri Bracquemond (22 May 1833 – 29 October 1914) was a French painter, etcher, and printmaker. He played a key role in the revival of printmaking, encouraging artists such as Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro to use this technique. Unusually for a prominent artist of this period, he also designed pottery for a number of French factories, in an innovative style that marks the beginning of Japonisme in France. He was the husband of the Impressionist painter Marie Bracquemond. Biography Early life Félix Bracquemond was born in Paris. He was trained in early youth as a trade lithographer, until Joseph Guichard, a pupil of Ingres, took him to his studio. His portrait of his grandmother, painted by him at the age of nineteen, attracted Théophile Gautier's attention at the Salon. Engraver His work in painting is rather limited. It includes mostly portraits (including that of Dr. Horace Montegre, and of Paul Meurice). Painting interested him less than engraving. He drew most of his technical knowledge from the Encyclopédie by Diderot and d'Alembert and he worked as a self-taught artist for a long time. In 1856, Edmond de Goncourt became close friends with Bracquemond, and they both shared a love of Japanese art, the engraver having been the first to discover an album by Hokusai. He applied himself to engraving and etching about 1853, and played a leading and brilliant part in the revival of the etcher's art in France. Altogether he produced over eight hundred plates, comprising portraits, landscapes, scenes of contemporary life, and bird-studies, besides numerous interpretations of other artist's paintings, especially those of Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, Gustave Moreau and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. He entered the literary milieu thanks to Auguste Poulet-Malassis, publisher of Charles Baudelaire with whom Bracquemond became friends. He also befriended Théodore de Banville, Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Gustave Geffroy, Félix Nadar and all the elites residing in Nouvelle Athènes. He also was a friend of Auguste Rodin. In June 1862, he joined the Société des aquafortistes founded by the publisher Alfred Cadart with the help of the printer Auguste Delâtre. On his advice, Jean-Baptiste Corot, Jean-François Millet, Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro began to practice engraving. He greatly helped Manet for his etchings of Olympia and L'Homme mort. In 1888, Auguste Lepère created with Félix Bracquemond, Daniel Vierge and Tony Beltrand, the magazine L'Estampe originale, in order to interest artists and amateurs in