Noble Woman with Fan
c. 1620/1623
Medium
etching on laid paper
Dimensions
sheet (trimmed within plate mark): 15 × 10 cm (5 7/8 × 3 15/16 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1949.5.406
Rights
Public Domain
Art Historical Context
Jacques Callot's *Noble Woman with Fan*, etched around 1620–1623, is a small yet captivating print on laid paper that measures just 15 by 10 centimeters. Callot, a leading French artist of the early Baroque period, excelled in etching—a technique in which lines are drawn through a protective ground on a metal plate, then bitten by acid to hold ink. This method allowed him to achieve extraordinary delicacy and precision in a compact format. The image presents a fashionable noblewoman holding a fan, her pose and costume rendered with Callot’s characteristic attention to texture, gesture, and co...
About the Artist
Jacques Callot · 1592–1635
Jacques Callot (1592–1635) was a French printmaker and draftsman from the Duchy of Lorraine, widely regarded as one of the first great artists to practice the graphic arts exclusively. His more than 1,400 etchings chronicled the breadth of 17th-century life, from Medici court festivities to the brutal realities of warfare. Callot revolutionized etching through technical innovations including the é...