Twilight

Art Historical Context

**Twilight** (ca. 1850) is a captivating lithograph by French artist Célestin Nuil, printed by Bertauts, P. Cadet in Paris. Measuring 12 3/8 × 17 9/16 inches, this print evokes the serene beauty of dusk, a favorite motif in Romantic art. Nanteuil, a skilled engraver and lithographer active in mid-19th-century France blended precise line work with subtle tonal gradations to capture fleeting light and shadow. Lithography, the medium here, revolutionized printmaking around 1800 by allowing artists to draw directly on limestone with greasy crayon, producing rich, painterly effects without raised plates. By the 1850s, it democratized art, making high-quality reproductions affordable for a growing middle class. Nanteuil's work reflects this era's Romantic fascination with nature's moods, bridging fine art and popular imagery. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department as part of The Elisha Whittelsey Collection (acquired 1963), *Twilight* showcases how 19th-century French printmakers like Nanteuil advanced visual storytelling. Imagine wandering Paris galleries, where such prints brought poetic evenings into everyday homes—a testament to lithography's enduring cultural reach.