Pierre-Michel Alix

Pierre-Michel Alix (1762 – 27 December 1817) was a French engraver. He studied under Jacques-Philippe Le Bas and was best known for his portraits of notable figures during the French Revolution and First French Empire. Many of his works are now held in the Louvre's Cabinet des estampes and in France's Bibliothèque nationale.

Life

Alix was born and died in Paris. One of the specialists of his era in colour printing, he produced many illustrations of Parisian life and fashion of his own time along with many caricatures. He produced prints of Voltaire, Helvétius, Buffon et Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1791).

He also produced images of figures from the French Revolution. For example, in 1789, he produced 18 prints of members of the National Constituent Assembly, notably Mirabeau, the Abbé Grégoire, Charles and Alexandre de Lameth and Antoine Barnave, published by Levacher de Charnois. He also produced printed portraits of Jean-Paul Marat, Pierre Louis Manuel, Marie Joseph Chalier, general Custine, general Dumouriez Antoine Lavoisier and Charlotte Corday. However, he was best known for his portraits of the child heroes Joseph Bara and Joseph Agricol Viala, whose distribution was largely funded and organised by the revolutionary propaganda machine.