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This exhibition, which complements the loan exhibition
Greuze the Draftsman, explores
French draftsmanship during the 1700s, considered the golden age of drawing in France.
Like Jean-Baptiste Greuze, the artists of this fertile artistic period were admired for
their technical ability, variety of media and subjects, and sensitive observation of
the world.
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This drawing was one of twelve that Moreau made to illustrate a book describing
scenes from the life of a fashionable, newly married young woman. Here, the reclining
bride has recently learned that she is pregnant and receives reassurance from her
friends. Although Moreau was an accomplished printmaker, he did not engrave this
composition himself. Instead, this refined, meticulous model was made for another
engraver to translate into a print.
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Watteau rose to prominence during the early 1700s with his paintings of leisurely
gatherings of finely dressed figures in idyllic landscapes. This coy young woman seems
effortlessly crafted in red, black, and white chalk, a technique that has become
synonymous with Watteau's drawings. Although the figure's formal dress and specific
posture might suggest otherwise, Watteau made this study for his own reference and not
for a particular composition.
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Boucher's drawings were as sought after as his paintings, and he made many, such as
this highly finished sheet, as independent works of art. He modeled the figures
of Venus and Cupid using black chalk, then subtly applied white chalk over the
buff-colored paper to define their skin tones. Boucher depicted the mythological pair in
seemingly endless variations throughout his career.
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A woman abandoned by her lover is an unusual scene of heartbreak by an artist
more famous for depicting playful bedroom scenarios. Fragonard had trained as a
painter of serious historical subjects, and he cleverly adapted those lessons here
in the sad young woman's pose, which recalls that of a repentant saint. Fragonard's
vocabulary of long undulating lines, in both the pencil underdrawing and the application
of wash, emphasizes the soft forms of the bed, the dog, and the figure.
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Saint-Aubin was a fixture on the Parisian art scene, faithfully attending exhibitions and
making small drawings of the paintings and sculptures on view. He saw the sculpture The Birth
of Venus (at upper left) in 1773 and drew it from the front and side. Although Saint-Aubin
used the sheet for several different studies, he unified them into a single composition. He created
a relationship between the statue and reading woman by placing them on a diagonal axis, from upper
left to lower right, implying a transformation from the mythological figure to the contemporary one.
Saint-Aubin also acknowledged the artist's role as the mediator between imagination and reality by
placing a draftsman between the figures (at lower left).
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