CLERC (Sebastian le), engraver and designer in ordinary to the French king, was born at Meiz in 1637. After having learnt designing, he applied himself to mathematics, and was engineer to the marshal de la Ferté. He went to Paris in 1665, where he applied himself to designing and engraving with such success, that M. Colbert gave him a pension of 600 crowns. In 1672, he was admitted into the royal academy of painting and sculpture; and in 1680 was made professor of geometry and perspective in the same academy. He published, besides a great number of designs and prints, 1. A Treatise on theoretical and practical
Clergy. practical Geometry, A Treatise on Architecture, and other works; and died in 1714. He was an excellent artist, but chiefly in the petit style. He immortalized Alexander, and Lewis XIV. in miniature. His genius seldom exceeds the dimensions of six inches. Within those limits he could draw up 20,000 men with great dexterity. No artist except Callot and Della Bella, could touch a small figure with so much spirit.