The Best Portraits in Engraving

[Illustration: THE SUDARIUM OF ST. VERONICA.

(Engraved by Claude Mellan from his own Design.)]

[Sidenote: Mellan.]

The school was opened by Claude Mellan, more known as engraver than painter, and also author of most of the designs he engraved. His life, beginning with the sixteenth century, was protracted beyond ninety years, not without signal honor, for his name appears among the "Illustrious Men" of France, in the beautiful volumes of Perrault, which is also a homage to the art he practiced. One of his works, for a long time much admired, was described by this author:

"It is a Christ's head, de