1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cousin, Jean

COUSIN, JEAN (1500–1590), French painter, was born at Soucy, near Sens, and began as a glass-painter, his windows in the Sainte Chapelle at Vincennes being considered the finest in France. As a painter of subject pictures he is ranked as the founder of the French school, as having first departed from the practice of portraits. His “Last Judgment,” influenced by Parmigiano, is in the Louvre, and a “Descent from the Cross” (1523) in the museum at Mainz is attributed to him. He was known also as a sculptor, and an engraver, both in etching and on wood, his wood-cuts for Jean le Clerc’s Bible (1596) and other books being his best-known work. He also wrote a Livre de perspective (1560), and a Livre de portraiture (1571).

See Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Étude sur J. Cousin (1872), and Recueil des œuvres choisies de J. Cousin (1873).