Claude Saint-Paul

Saint-Paul, or Simpol, as he is often called, was active in Paris as a printmaker. He published prints of his own design and reproductive engravings after the designs of others. One of his particular accomplishments is a body of highly finished and painterly drawings that encompass vignettes of elegant people at leisure, genre scenes, and narratives with religious content. Crispin and Crispinian, two noble Romans who brought Christianity to Gaul in the third century, are the patron saints of cobblers: they evangelized by day and made shoes by night. -- Exhibition Label, From "Poussin, Claude, and French Drawing in the Classical Age"