2008.110: Standing Putto
Prints
This object does not yet have a description.
Identification and Creation
- Object Number
- 2008.110
- People
-
Dominique Vivant Denon, French (Givry, France 1747 - 1825 Paris, France)
After Guido Reni, Italian (Bologna 1575 - 1642 Bologna)
- Title
- Standing Putto
- Classification
- Prints
- Work Type
- Date
- c. 1790
- Culture
- French
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/101271
Physical Descriptions
- Medium
- Etching and roulette printed in blue ink on Chinese paper
- Technique
- Etching and roulette
- Dimensions
-
Plate: 25.8 × 21 cm (10 3/16 × 8 1/4 in.)
Sheet: 29.1 × 33.5 cm (11 7/16 × 13 3/16 in.) - Inscriptions and Marks
-
- inscription: upper left corner, graphite, hand written: A Hav/IV / 18-19 Jahrh[undert]
- inscription: verso, graphite, hand written: Ref / EM [in a circle; cataloguing information?]
Acquisition and Rights
- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of James A. Bergquist, Boston
- Accession Year
- 2008
- Object Number
- 2008.110
- Division
- European and American Art
- Contact
- am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
- Permissions
-
The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.
Descriptions
- Commentary
- Dominique Denon, who, as was demonstrated in an exhibition, "Prints from the Serenissima: Connoisseurship and the Graphic Arts in Eighteenth-Century Venice" (Harvard Art Museum/Fogg Museum, 23 November 2002 - 9 March 2003), was an innovative and influential printmaker. This impression exemplifies his experimentation well. Its somewhat trite subject -- a standing putto copied from a Guido Reni drawing -- is merely the vehicle for experimentation in technique, medium, and support. Denon has used etching and roulette, conventional enough for the 18th century, but he extended the tonal potential of roulette to create vapous veils of pale tone, perhaps by the direct application of acid to the plate. For this impression he selected an astonishing shade of blue ink, suggestive of Prussian blue, a synthetic pigment invented only a few decades earlier which had come into great fashion but which is as far as possible from the gray or brown washes that would have characterized the Reni original. Finally, as a further distinction to this impression, Denon selected a soft grayish-white Chinese paper. According to Darius Spieth, organizer of the aforementioned exhibition, whose PhD dissertation catalogues the prints of Denon, this is entirely in character for the artist.
Verification Level
This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu