CLERC, Sebastian le (1637-1714), an eminent French engraver, was born at Metz. After having held the office of engineer to the Marshal de la Ferté, he went to Paris in 1665, and 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. Besides a vast number of designs and prints, he published A Treatise on Theoretical and Practical Geometry, A Treatise on Architecture, and other works. Le Clerc was an excellent artist, and his smaller works, in which he was most successful, are only equalled by the engravings of Callot and Della Bella. His most esteemed prints are, 1. The Passion of our Saviour, on 36 small plates; 2. The Miracle of Feeding the Five Thousand; 3. The Elevation of the large Stones used in Building the Front of the Louvre; 4. The Academy of the Sciences, a middle-sized plate, lengthwise; 5. The May of the Gobelins, a middle-sized plate, lengthwise; 6. The Four Conquests, large plates, lengthwise, representing the taking of Tournay, the taking of Douay, the defeat of the Comte de Marsin, and the Switzerland Alliance; 7. The Battles of Alexander, from Le Brun, six small long plates, including the title, which represents the picture gallery at the Gobelins; and 8. The Entry of Alexander into Babylon, a middle-sized plate, lengthwise, in the first impressions of which the
Clergy
Clerk.
face of Alexander is seen in profile, but in the second it is a three-quarter face, and therefore called the print with the head turned.