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Jean De Bast (14 June 1883 – 24 December 1975) was a Belgian postage stamp draughtsman and engraver.
| This article needs more citations. (January 2021) |
Jean De Bast (14 June 1883 – 24 December 1975) was a Belgian postage stamp draughtsman and engraver.
Jean De Bast was born in Brussels, Belgium, on 14 June 1883. In 1907, he joined the national postage stamp printinghouse in Mechelen, after having completed his artistic training in drawing, painting, engraving. He finished his career there in 1945 as a senior foreman.
His first works in philately were the series "Helmeted King" in 1919 and the engraving of the effigy of King Albert I ("Houyoux" type) in 1922.
In 1926, the Belgian sovereigns realized his value after the issue of a stamp to benefit the fight against tuberculosis. In accordance with the wish of the King, a competition was organized between four Prix de Rome recipients and De Bast, who won. From then onwards, De Bast was the appointed engraver of the Postal Services.
While keeping his position at the postage stamps printing-house, De Bast worked as a freelance engraver, producing works of high quality.
In 1952, he disagreed with the Postal Service management, which had without his consent retouched the original matrix for a stamp bearing the effigy of King Baudouin. The stamp as issued received negative reviews from the press and was rapidly withdrawn from sale. De Bast waited for several years before being entrusted with another stamp engraving.
He put an end to his career in 1967, at the age of 84. In 1964 and 1965, two of his stamps received a golden medal in Paris: "Infant Christ with John the Baptist and two angels" (after Peter Paul Rubens) and "The daughters of the painter Cornelis de Vos".
Between 1926 and 1967, he engraved more than one hundred postage stamps, ten or twelve stamps for the railway, and five fiscal stamps for the Ministry of Finance. De Bast obtained numerous distinctions both for his work and his behaviour as a patriot during the war. Ten years after his death, on the occasion of the "Journée du timbre" (Stamp Day), the Postal Service paid homage to him by issuing a stamp showing him at work.
All his stamps were printed with the intaglio process, also called copperplate printing. Since 1959, some of them have been printed using combination of intaglio and rotogravure (also called heliography, screen printing or photogravure) processes.
[check quotation syntax]* "The castles", 1 December 1930: castles of Beloeil, Ooidonk, Ghent, Bouillon and Gaasbeek
Other engraving works related to Belgian postage stamps: