Between the end of the Ancien Régime and the Empire, painters readily used grisaille to imitate other art forms. The American painter Benjamin West created a new work of art which echoes the monochromatic altarpiece wings of earlier painting.

Berthelemy, Labruzzi, and Vallayer-Coster imitated the effects of bas-relief in pastiche, antique copying, and interpretation of a contemporary terracotta by Clodion, respectively. The representation of a false frame by Vallayer-Coster and the imitation of bronze in the rare revolutionary subject by Sauvage are also in the trompe l’oeil vein.

Boilly and Hennequin imitated engraving by playing on the justification of the printing or the label. Boilly’s false engravings, sometimes incorporating painted broken glass, were very popular at the beginning of the 19th century.

The painting by the German Romantic painter Moritz von Schwind, dating from the mid-19th century, irresistibly recalls the black-and-white illustrations of medieval legends, in which he happened to be a specialist.