Accession Number
1953.609
Medium
pen and black ink and brush and brown wash over graphite, with traces of white gouache; framing lines in black ink
Dimensions
Sheet: 13.3 x 18.3 cm (5 1/4 x 7 3/16 in.); Secondary Support: 20 x 25.2 cm (7 7/8 x 9 15/16 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Credit Line
Gift of William Mathewson Milliken, in memory of H. Oothout Milliken
Tags
Drawing Neoclassical & Romantic (1751–1850) Ink Graphite & Pencil Gouache French
Background & Context
Background Story
Jean Baptiste Le Prince (1734-1781) was a French painter, etcher, and draftsman known for his genre scenes of Russian life that he observed during his years in Russia (1758-64), and for his technical innovations in printmaking. Maternal Solicitude from 1777 depicts a mother caring for her child in the pen and wash medium that Le Prince used for his most accomplished drawings. The 1777 date places this in Le Prince's mature period, after his return from Russia, when he was adapting the Russian genre subjects that had made him famous to more universal themes of domestic life.
Cultural Impact
Le Prince's domestic genre drawings are important in the history of 18th-century French art because they combine the technical virtuosity of his Russian subjects with the more universal theme of maternal care that appealed to the sentiment of the pre-Revolutionary period. Maternal Solicitude demonstrates Le Prince's ability to adapt his genre subjects from specifically Russian themes to the universal themes of domestic life that would dominate French genre painting in the last decades of the Ancien Régime.
Why It Matters
Maternal Solicitude is Le Prince adapting his genre subjects to universal themes: a mother caring for her child rendered in pen and wash with the technical virtuosity that his Russian subjects had made famous. The 1777 drawing combines genre observation with the sentimental domestic theme that dominated French art before the Revolution.
