La Bonne Mere
Medium
Etching, third state
Dimensions
sheet: 26 11/16 x 21 1/8 in. (67.8 x 53.6 cm) image: 22 1/8 x 16 3/4 in. (56.2 x 42.5 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Roland L. Redmond Gift, Louis V. Bell and Rogers Funds, 1972
Accession Number
1972.539.29
Tags
Art Historical Context
**La Bonne Mère (The Good Mother)** enchanting etching, titled *La Bonne Mère* (The Good Mother), is a collaboration the celebrated Rococo painter Jean Honoré Fragonard master engraver Nicolas de Launay. Created in the third state—a refined stage of printmaking where details were polished for greater clarity and depth—it captures Fragonard's signature playful elegance in a reproductive print. Likely based on one of Fragonard's whimsical compositions, the image evokes 18th-century French aristocracy through motifs like infants, nurturing women, majestic lions symbolizing strength and nobility...
About the Artist
Jean Honoré Fragonard|Nicolas de Launay · 1732–1806
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. Born in Grasse, he moved to Paris where he trained under Jean-Baptiste Chardin and François Boucher, winning the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1752. After studying in Italy alongside Hubert Robert, Fragonard returned to Paris in 1761 to fi...