BOSSE, ABRAHAM

born 1602, Tours, France died 1676, Paris notable engraver, painter, and architect who was active during the Baroque period in France. Under the influence of a mathematician, Girard Desargues, Bosse mastered perspective, of which he became a professor at the Academy of Painting. Elected an honorary academician, he was subsequently expelled because of his serious quarrels with colleagues. His printsmostly of allegories, genre scenes, frontispieces, and costumesinclude The Ages of Man (1636) and The Marriage of Ladislas IV (1645). One of Bosse's best-known writings is Trait des manires de dessiner les ordres de l'architecture antique (1664; Treatise on the Ways of Designing the Orders of Classical Architecture). His paintings, which today are rare, include The Foolish Virgins. Contributing to the development of caricature and cartoon, Bosse also lampooned trades and professions with dispassionate woodcuts and engravings.