Early Life
Cochin was born in Paris, the son of Charles-Nicolas Cochin the Elder (1688–1754), under whom he studied engraving. His mother was Louise-Magdeleine Horthemels (1686–1767), who herself was an important engraver in Paris for some fifty years.
Beyond his artistic education, Cochin taught himself Latin, English, and Italian, and he read the work of the philosopher John Locke in the original.
As well as having natural talent and academic training, Cochin benefited from good connections in the world of art. As well as both of his parents being engravers, his mother's two sisters, Marie-Nicole Horthemels (b. 1689, died after 1745) and Marie-Anne-Hyacinthe Horthemels (1682–1727), worked in the same field. Marie-Nicole was married to the portrait artist Alexis Simon Belle, while Marie-Anne-Hyacinthe was the wife of Nicolas-Henri Tardieu. Tardieu (1674–1749) was another eminent French engraver, a member of the Academy from 1720, who engraved the works of masters of the Renaissance and of his own time.
The Horthemels family, originally from The Netherlands, were followers of the Dutch theologian Cornelis Jansen and had links with the Parisian abbey of Port-Royal des Champs, the centre of Jansenist thought in France.
In the 1730s, Cochin was a member of the Gobelins group which centred around Charles Parrocel.
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