The Bourgeois Cuisine of Jean Baptiste Lallemand

The author
Jean Baptiste Lallemand of Dijon (1716-1803) was the son of a tailor who wished to steer him toward his own trade. So the young Jean Baptiste held needle and thread in his hand, at least until 1739, when, by pure chance, he agreed to paint four paintings to decorate a customer's country house and ... not only did he receive a good payment, but he realized that pencil and brush were his real direction in life.

Thus, he abandoned the packaging of the coquettish garments of the eighteenth-century wardrobe and passed to the creation of pleasant landscapes and genre scenes.

A highly regarded painter and draftsman, after a stay in England and Italy, Jean Baptise decided to settle in Paris, where he became a member of the Académie de Saint-Luc. The Musée des Beaux-Arts of Dijon owns many of his works, but many of his drawings and paintings are also present in the collections of the Musée Carnavalet and the Cabinet des estampes of the Bibliothèque nationale, both in Paris.

The engraver
The Parisian Pierre-François Basan (1723-1797) was initially a burin engraver and an etching artist of great skill, thanks also to the studies carried out under the aegis of his uncle, the well-known engraver Étienne Fessard, and to the collaboration with Michel Odieuvre, who in the first half of the eighteenth century was one of the greatest publishers and print merchants in Europe.

Then, at the stroke of 30 years, due to the liveliness of his character and his inability to have the patience and constancy required in the art of engraving, Pierre-François left the profession of engraver to become a print merchant.

With the company founded together with his son-in-law - Basan et Poignant - he would come to monopolize the engraving trade in Paris, then throughout France and, then, in Europe, after having edited the catalogs of a series of auctions for the inheritance of famous people, such as the Marquis of Marigny, brother of the Marquis of Pompadour.

Basan was the editor of one of the most beautiful illustrated books of the eighteenth century, "Les Métamorphoses d'Ovide illustrées par Le Mire" (1767-1771) and of the "Collection" that bears his name and brings together the prints of a series of original copper plates engraved by Rembrandt.

Basan was also responsible for the drafting of the monumental work "Dictionnaire des graveurs anciens et modernes depuis l'origine de la gravure; avec une notice des principales estampes qu'ils ont graveés", first published in 1767 and re-edited in 1789. An essential reference point for print experts from all over the world.

The work
The engraving "La cuisine bourgeoise" (The bourgeois kitchen) - made through the etching and burin technique - depicts with a wealth of details and furnishings the interior of a bourgeois kitchen of the eighteenth century.

We see the hostess, next to the lit fireplace in which a pot is placed on the fire: the lady has a cat in her lap and watches her little girl play on the floor. Next to her little daughter, a little dog observes the scene.

Meanwhile, a maid is intent on preparing the meal and peeking, perhaps maliciously, in full eighteenth-century spirit, an errand boy who can be seen passing out the top window of the kitchen. On the work table, a common head of salad.

As can be read in the inscription of the press, frugality is the value of the new bourgeois class, enemy of pomp and ostentation at the table.

A sobriety that has its best reward in health.

The work seems a preview of the so-called "Piccolo Vialardi", that is the volume "Bourgeois cuisine " - simple and cheap - published for the first time in Turin in 1863 and written by Giovanni Vialardi, the cook of the Royal House of Savoy.

The healthy, quality recipes are simple in their ingredients and preparations and, above all, attentive to costs in the book, which is the version for bourgeois use of the noble "Trattato di cucina, pasticceria moderna, credenza e relative confettureria" (Treatise on cooking, modern pastry, sideboard and relevant jams) (the Grande Vialardi) of 1854.

And the housewife acquires an important role in overseeing the activities of the family kitchen, even without cooking in first person because she can have service personnel.

The healthy, quality recipes are simple in their ingredients and preparations and, above all, attentive to costs in the book, which is the version for bourgeois use of the noble "Trattato di cucina, pasticceria moderna, credenza e relative confettureria" (Treatise on cooking, modern pastry, sideboard and relevant jams) (the Grande Vialardi) of 1854.