Chinoiserie with a woman playing a gong, from Suite de Figures Chinoises. . .Tiré du Cabinet de Mr. d'Azaincourt
Original title: Chinoiserie with a woman playing a gong, from Suite de Figures Chinoises. . .Tiré du Cabinet de Mr. d'Azaincourt (Series of Chinoiserie Figures. . .From the Chambers of Mr. d'Azaincourt)
kurzbeschreibung
Jean Pierre Louis Laurent Hoüel etched and engraved this chinoiserie of a woman striking a gong between 1755 and 1776. The print belongs to the Suite de Figures Chinoises, a set engraved after designs by François Boucher, and it reflects the taste for chinoiserie that swept through eighteenth-century France.
Description
The woman wears a gown cut after Chinese models, her hair piled high and set with an ornament. Trees and shrubs surround her, suggesting a garden, while more trees and a house appear behind her. The arrangement follows a stylized, baroque-inflected idiom typical of the era of the French kings. The sheet is monochrome, mostly gradations of gray and white, with light distributed evenly and no strong shadows.
Context
The Suite de Figures Chinoises was engraved after designs by François Boucher, one of the leading masters of the rococo. Hoüel carried out the etching, and the print came from the cabinet of Monsieur d'Azaincourt. Chinoiseries were widespread in eighteenth-century Europe and testified to a fascination with East Asian culture, often in invented or idealized form. Dated 1755–76, the work falls in a period when Boucher was already an established artist.
Impact
The print gives off a calm, idyllic mood, as chinoiseries typically do. Even light and delicate lines lend the motif an elegant, decorative quality without dramatic tension. The viewer is offered a glimpse of the imaginative vision of the distant East that the French rococo cultivated.
Technique
Hoüel worked here in etching with additional engraving on paper. This method allows fine lines and precise reproduction of details such as the folds of the clothing or the landscape behind. As a monochrome print, the sheet is limited to black and white, which makes contours and shading stand out strongly.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)