The Chapel of the Enfants-Trouvés in Paris: L'Adoration des bergers

The Chapel of the Enfants-Trouvés in Paris: L'Adoration des bergers

Etienne Fessard

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

From a series of fifteen plates engraved by Fessard after the paintings by Natoire in the Chapel of the Enfants-Trouvés, Paris. The chapel was built in 1746-50 based on designs by Germain Boffrand, but destroyed in the 19th century. The main altar depicted The Adoration of the Magi and subsidiary scenes included the children and nuns of the orphanage as onlookers. Natoire’s scenes were set into trompe l’oeil surrounds painted by Paolo Antonio and Gaetano Brunetti, giving the illusion that the viewer was standing in a ruined building. Fessard’s suite of prints includes a perspective view of the interior based on a drawing by Augustin de Saint-Aubin 59.570.49. The print depicting the ceiling (Caviglia-Brunel, 2012, under *P.195, p.360) is missing from the Met’s set.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Chapel of the Enfants-Trouvés in Paris: L'Adoration des bergersThe Chapel of the Enfants-Trouvés in Paris: L'Adoration des bergersThe Chapel of the Enfants-Trouvés in Paris: L'Adoration des bergersThe Chapel of the Enfants-Trouvés in Paris: L'Adoration des bergersThe Chapel of the Enfants-Trouvés in Paris: L'Adoration des bergers

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.