Le repos
Jean-Baptiste Le Prince
Description
Gallery Rotation Winter 2012
Jean-Baptiste Le Prince
France, 1734–1781
Le repos
1771
Etching and aquatint with
hand-coloring
Museum purchase, 1993/2.15
Following a ten-year sojourn to Russia working for the tsars, Le Prince made his name with a series of paintings and drawings of Russian-inspired subjects that appealed to the French fascination with exotic, non-European cultures. Beginning around 1770, he concentrated on pastoral scenes, some evidencing the moralizing tenor common in the period. In Le Repos, which means rest, a disheveled, partly dressed young woman sleeps in the foreground while an elderly couple whisper and gesture towards her in the shadows at left. Although specifics of the scene are left unstated, the overturned basket with broken eggs in the foreground suggests that the young woman has lost her virginity and compromised her virtue.
Le Prince had a reputation as a superb printmaker, particularly for his use of aquatint, an etching technique that allows a print to assume all the complex nuances of a painting with its subtle tonal gradations. The technique had been largely forgotten until the eighteenth century, when Le Prince, one of its earliest practitioners in France, published recipes for its use.
Subject Matter:
Le Repos evidences a moralizing tenor that is common at this period. A disheveled, partly dressed young woman sleeps in the foreground while an elderly couple whisper and gesture towards her in the shadows at left. Although specifics of the scene are left unstated, the symbolism in the foreground of the overturned basket with broken eggs refers to the young woman’s lost virginity. Le Prince’s skills as a printmaker allow this print to assume all the complex nuances of a painting with its subtle tonal gradations and the richly described interior.
Physical Description:
In a large dark interior, and elderly couple standing in the shadows gestures towards a sleeping woman positioned in bright light in the foreground. Her clothing is in disarray, her breasts exposed, and garments used as makeshift drapery to screen her. At the lower left is a still life of an overturned basket with vegetables and eggs cascading onto the floor.
Usage Rights:
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