The Painter
Medium
Etching and engraving
Dimensions
Sheet (Trimmed): 12 1/16 × 9 1/16 in. (30.7 × 23 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1953
Accession Number
53.600.536
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the heart of 18th-century Rococo art, *The Painter* (1743) captures a whimsical yet insightful scene through the masterful collaboration of painter Jean Siméon Chardin engraver Louis Surugue. Chardin, renowned for his intimate still lifes and genre scenes that celebrated everyday life with remarkable realism and subtle light effects, provided the original composition. Surugue then translated it into an exquisite etching and engraving—a printmaking technique that allowed for intricate details and tonal depth through acid bites and burin work on copper plates. Measuring about 12 by 9 inches, ...
About the Artist
Jean Siméon Chardin|Louis Surugue · 1699–1779
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, born on November 2, 1699, in Paris to a cabinetmaker father who crafted billiard tables, grew up immersed in the city's artisan world on the Left Bank near Saint-Sulpice. His early training came through apprenticeships with the history painters Pierre-Jacques Cazes, where he honed academic drawing techniques, and Noël-Nicolas Coypel, whose assignment to copy a musket ...