Crew
1865
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Sheet: 10 1/16 × 13 3/8 in. (25.5 × 34 cm) Plate: 5 5/16 × 7 7/8 in. (13.5 × 20 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1927
Accession Number
27.10.57
Tags
Art Historical Context
Charles Jacque’s 1865 etching *Crew* offers a charming glimpse into everyday rural life. The compact plate captures a lively scene populated by men, women, and children gathered around carts, with chickens scattered at their feet. Through delicate line work, Jacque conveys both the bustle of activity and the quiet rhythms of the countryside, inviting viewers to linger over the interactions between people and animals. Etching was a favored medium for 19th-century artists seeking fine detail and tonal subtlety. By drawing through a wax ground on a metal plate and then immersing it in acid, Jacq...
About the Artist
Charles Jacque
Charles-Émile Jacque (1813–1894) was a pioneering French painter, engraver, and illustrator whose career bridged the worlds of printmaking and pastoral painting. Born in Paris amid a difficult childhood, he apprenticed at age seventeen to a map engraver, mastering drypoint technique and producing his first etching in 1830—a copy of a head after Rembrandt. After serving seven years in the French Ar...