Leap Frog, from The Games of the Urchins of Paris
Medium
Etching on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Plate: 21.7 × 18.3 cm (8 9/16 × 7 1/4 in.); Sheet: 35.8 × 26.5 cm (14 1/8 × 10 7/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
131266
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Jean-Baptiste Tilliard and Augustin de Saint-Aubin’s series of prints depicting traditional children’s games also included horseshoes and jump rope. Although some of the leap-frogging “urchins” in this etching are barefoot and disheveled from their athletics, their trappings would not be out of place for the more adult and aristocratic game of the hunt. The moralizing verse at the bottom of the print notes that while this pastime is good exercise for forgetting the woes of schooling, the delicat...