Laurent Cars (1699 - 1771). Laurent Cars was a French designer and engraver. He was born at Lyon, the son of Jean-François Cars, who took him when quite young to Paris, where it was not long before he distinguished himself. In 1733 he was received as an Academician upon his portraits of Michel Anguier and Sébastien Bourdon. Cars, who was the master of Beauvarlet, may be considered one of the best French engravers of the 18th century, in the kind of subjects he selected. He died in Paris in 1771. His best plates are those engraved after Lemoyne, particularly that of 'Hercules and Omphale,' and the series of illustrations after Boucher's designs to the Comedies of Molière, and after Oudry to the Fables of La Fontaine.