Biography

French painter and printmaker. He was a protégé of Gabriel-Christophe Allegrain and was taught by Joseph-Marie Vien. His own preference was for genre painting in the Flemish style. In 1781 he was approved (agréé) as a member of the Académie Royale, Paris, on the basis of several works to be exhibited at that year's Salon; among these, the Charitable Gentleman (Paris, Galerie Cailleux) is a moralistic scene clearly inspired by Jean-Baptiste Greuze but using the technique of Isaack van Ostade. The pictures Debucourt exhibited at the Salons of 1783 and 1785 continued to draw their inspiration from Flemish art, then very popular in Paris, while remaining faithful to the realities of French peasant life. One of these works, The King's Act of Charity and Humanity (untraced; engraved in 1787 by Laurent Guyot), was accepted for exhibition in 1785 only after Debucourt had, by royal command, changed the title and made Louis XVI less easy to recognize.

Debucourt executed a few plates in mezzotint after his own designs. Most of his work was, however, in aquatint. He became the leading maker of multi-plate colour prints, combining washes of aquatint with line-engraving. He used a number of different techniques, but most involved three colour plates, and a fourth key plate, outlining the design in black. In addition to work from his own designs, he made aquatints after Carle Vernet.

In caricature, he might have equalled Rowlandson, the English caricaturist, if he had not been so occupied with the intricacies of colour prints; but he produced a few superb cartoons of the Paris of his day, full of caricatures of fashionable personages.