Bénédict Alphonse Nicolet

This 18th-to-early-19th-century printmaker specialized in religious scenes, often etching martyrs on copper plates. You’ll find his *The Martyrdom of St. Apollonia* in this bundle—it shows the saint calmly enduring torture, her extracted tooth the only clue to the violence. Every line is crisp, every shadow cut with a burin, a technique that kept sharpness through thousands of impressions. Look closely and you can still see the plate’s wear after two centuries of press runs. Tap *St. Apollonia’s* to see how the image’s details shift between early and later states of the same print.