The Rest (Le Repos)
Jean-Baptiste Le Prince
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
This dark interior demonstrates Jean-Baptiste Le Prince’s skill at wielding aquatint, a tonal intaglio print technique for which he developed a unique method in 1768. The effect of dramatic chiaroscuro is reminiscent of Rembrandt’s prints, which Le Prince greatly admired. The two figures on the left and various ropes and fishnets hanging from the beams dissolve into the saturated depths of the room. Off-set against this dark background, a sleeping woman, the object of the old man’s and elderly woman’s attention is clearly displayed for the viewer’s appreciation. Le Prince emphasizes the erotic appeal of the sleeping young beauty. The girl’s clothing has become disheveled in her slumber, exposing her shoulders and chest. Golden light caresses her smooth, exposed skin. The broken eggs in the bottom left, a familiar motif in eighteenth-century genre scenes, suggest the loss of the young woman’s virtue. Delicate details in aquatint capture the patterns and textures of the tangle of fabrics beneath and around the woman’s splayed legs. By drawing attention to the sleeping woman through these visual means, Le Prince transforms the viewer into a third voyeur, one who relishes in the opportunity offered by the subject’s unconscious state to gaze freely at this tableau.
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.