Graphic History: What Readers Knew and Were Taught in the Quarante Tableaux of Perrissin and Tortorel
Though they may not be able to identify them by name, most students of early modern French history are familiar with the print series published in Geneva in 1569–70 under the title Quarante tableaux ou histoires diverses qui sont memorables touchant les Guerres, Massacres et troubles advenus en France en ces dernieres annees. The series was launched and financed by two refugee textile entrepreneurs from the Low Countries, who hired artists to draw the images and then carve them as woodcuts and subsequently as engravings. The leading role in production went to two artists from Lyon, Jean Perrissin and Jacques Tortorel, who, between them, probably drew all of the images. From the number of prints surviving and their imitators, it is clear that the Quarante tableaux circulated widely, as a set or individually, throughout the Netherlands, France, the Rhineland, and northern Germany.1
