The Deer

Art Historical Context

**The Deer**, a delicate wood engraving by French artist Charles Jacque from around 1853, captures the quiet grace of a solitary deer in a compact square format measuring just under 3 inches on each side. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, this print was a generous gift from collector Howard Mansfield in 192. Jacque, a key figure in the Barbizon school, specialized in pastoral scenes and animal subjects, blending Realism with a romantic appreciation for nature. Wood engraving, the medium here, was a 19th-century innovation prized for its precision. By c...

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...