(b Givet, Ardennes, 16 Nov 1730; d Paris, 17 July 1792). French engraver. After taking drawing lessons in Liège, he went to Paris, where he acquired a sound technique in the studios of Jacques-Philippe Lebas and Jacques Aliamet but principally in that of Jean-Georges Wille. Following a journey to Italy, Germany and the Netherlands he returned to Paris, where he established himself mainly as an engraver of book illustrations. His earliest datable works are 21 plates after François Eisen for the edition of Jean de La Fontaine’s Contes known as that of the ‘Fermiers généraux’ (1762). The same year, for his former teacher Wille, he engraved two pictures by Pierre-Joseph Mettay (1728–59), Shipwreck near Naples (Panhard, no. 1) and View of the Environs of Naples (P 2), for which he was paid the considerable sum of 650 livres each. He seldom made individual prints, although he did engrave several scenes after Eisen, and The Fishermen (c. 1770; P 9) after Joseph Vernet for Charles-Nicolas Cochin II; and, most important of all, the View of the Unveiling of the Pont de Neuilly (1772; P 3) after Eustache Saint-Far (1746–1822). These plates were generally commissioned, by a variety of publishers, and often Longueil was only asked to engrave the outlines, with others such as Emmanuel de Ghendt and Augustin de Saint-Aubin doing the etching. He did, however, engrave on his own behalf, in 1776, two allegories dedicated to Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, Louis XVI Supported by Minerva and Venus and Marie-Antoinette Receiving France’s Homage, for which he asked Cochin to do the drawings, Pierre-Philippe Choffard to do the frames, and Saint-Aubin to make the etchings. These allegories earned him a patent as Graveur du Roi and the title of Graveur du Prince de Condé.

• Longueil, Joseph de
  • Lebas, Jacques-Philippe
  • Wille: (1) Jean-Georges Wille