Pierre-Michel Alix was a French engraver. He studied under Jacques-Philippe Le Bas

Jacques-Philippe Le Bas

Jacques-Philippe Le Bas or Lebas was a French engraver.-Life and work:Lebas was engraver to the Cabinet du roi and successfully produced engravings after several paintings by different artists...

 and was best known for his portraits of notable figures during the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

 and First French Empire

First French Empire

The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...

. Many of his works are now held in the Louvre

Louvre

The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

's Cabinet des estampes and in France's Bibliothèque nationale.

Life

One of the specialists of his era in colour printing, Alix produced many illustrations of Parisian life and fashion of his own time along with many caricatures. He produced prints of Voltaire

Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...

, Helvétius, Buffon et Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...

 (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

National Constituent Assembly

The National Constituent Assembly was formed from the National Assembly on 9 July 1789, during the first stages of the French Revolution. It dissolved on 30 September 1791 and was succeeded by the Legislative Assembly.-Background:...

, notably Mirabeau, the Abbé Grégoire

Henri Grégoire

Henri Grégoire , often referred to as Abbé Grégoire, was a French Roman Catholic priest, constitutional bishop of Blois and a revolutionary leader...

, Charles and Alexandre de Lameth and Antoine Barnave

Antoine Barnave

Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave was a French politician, and, together with Honoré Mirabeau, one of the most influential orators of the early part of the French Revolution...

, published by Levacher de Charnois. He also produced printed portraits of Jean-Paul Marat

Jean-Paul Marat

Jean-Paul Marat , born in the Principality of Neuchâtel, was a physician, political theorist, and scientist best known for his career in France as a radical journalist and politician during the French Revolution...

, Pierre Louis Manuel, Marie Joseph Chalier, general Custine, general Dumouriez Antoine Lavoisier

Antoine Lavoisier

Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier , the "father of modern chemistry", was a French nobleman prominent in the histories of chemistry and biology...

 and Charlotte Corday

Charlotte Corday

Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont , known to history as Charlotte Corday, was a figure of the French Revolution. In 1793, she was executed under the guillotine for the assassination of Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat, who was in part responsible, through his role as a politician and...

. However, he was best known for his portraits of the child heroes Joseph Bara

Joseph Bara

Joseph Bara, also written Barra a young French republican soldier at the time of the Revolution....

 and Joseph Agricol Viala

Joseph Agricol Viala

Joseph Agricol Viala was a child hero in the French Revolutionary Army.-Life:...

, whose distribution was largely funded and organised by the revolutionary propaganda machine.

Under the French Directory

French Directory

The Directory was a body of five Directors that held executive power in France following the Convention and preceding the Consulate...

 and French Consulate

French Consulate

The Consulate was the government of France between the fall of the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799 until the start of the Napoleonic Empire in 1804...

, Alix turned especially towards historic subjects and subjects inspired by classical antiquity. He also produced prints of Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...

 (1795), general Hoche

Lazare Hoche

Louis Lazare Hoche was a French soldier who rose to be general of the Revolutionary army.Born of poor parents near Versailles, he enlisted at sixteen as a private soldier in the Gardes Françaises...

, general Augereau (1797), general Bonaparte at the head of the armée d'Italie (1798), general Kléber at the head of the armée de Sambre-et-Meuse (1798), general Berthier

Louis Alexandre Berthier

Louis Alexandre Berthier, 1st Prince de Wagram, 1st Duc de Valangin, 1st Sovereign Prince de Neuchâtel , was a Marshal of France, Vice-Constable of France beginning in 1808, and Chief of Staff under Napoleon.-Early life:Alexandre was born at Versailles to Lieutenant-Colonel Jean Baptiste Berthier ,...

 at the pont de Lodi

Battle of Lodi

The Battle of Lodi was fought on May 10, 1796 between French forces under General Napoleon Bonaparte and an Austrian rear guard led by Karl Philipp Sebottendorf at Lodi, Lombardy...

 on 10 May 1796, general Bernadotte

Charles XIV John of Sweden

Charles XIV & III John, also Carl John, Swedish and Norwegian: Karl Johan was King of Sweden and King of Norway from 1818 until his death...

, Antoine-François Fourcroy

Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy

Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy was a French chemist and a contemporary of Antoine Lavoisier. Fourcroy collaborated with Lavoisier, Guyton de Morveau, and Claude Berthollet on the Méthode de nomenclature chimique, a work that helped standardize chemical nomenclature.-Life and work:Fourcroy...

 (1802), Napoleon as First Consul (1803) and a group portrait of the three consuls (Bonaparte, Cambacérès and Lebrun).

In 1815, on the Second Restoration

Bourbon Restoration

The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon  – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...

, he produced a print of Louis XVIII

Louis XVIII of France

Louis XVIII , known as "the Unavoidable", was King of France and of Navarre from 1814 to 1824, omitting the Hundred Days in 1815...

after a painting by Pasquier and a The King's return on 8 July 1815 after Martinet.