Sheet of Skteches
- Medium
- Etching on cream chine, laid down on ivory wove paper
- Dimensions
- Image, including stray marks: 5.5 × 13 cm (2 3/16 × 5 1/8 in.); Plate: 6.5 × 13.7 cm (2 9/16 × 5 7/16 in.); Primary support: 6.1 × 13.5 cm (2 7/16 × 5 3/8 in.); Secondary support: 13.3 × 22.1 cm (5 1/4 × 8 3/4 in.)
- Genre
- Etching
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Tags
printprints and drawingetchingpaper (fiber product)
About
As a pioneer of battle vignettes, Denis-Auguste-Marie Raffet depicted many military scenes in sketchbooklike compositions. He began to publish lithographs in 1826, and Sheet of Sketches was one of his early works. This sheet has a semi-nostalgic, satirical tone, with details of a frantic crowd cheering for a duel between knights and a scene of ritualistic decapitation. Raffet’s lithographs inspired generations of artists and writers, including Honorè de Balzac.
