A Family (Une famille)
1890
Medium
etching on laid paper
Dimensions
image: 15 × 11.1 cm (5 7/8 × 4 3/8 in.) plate: 15.7 × 12 cm (6 3/16 × 4 3/4 in.) sheet: 27.5 × 18.9 cm (10 13/16 × 7 7/16 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1943.3.1488
Art Historical Context
Albert Besnard's *A Family (Une famille)* created in 1890, is a delicate etching on laid paper that captures the intimacy of domestic life in fin-de-siècle France. Measuring just 15 × 11.1 cm in its image area, this intimate print reflects the era's growing fascination with family bonds amid rapid social and industrial changes. Besnard, a prominent French artist known for his luminous paintings and virtuoso printmaking, often infused his works with emotional depth and subtle symbolism, bridging academic traditions with emerging modernist sensibilities. Etching, Besnard's chosen medium here, i...
About the Artist
Albert Besnard
Paul-Albert Besnard, known as Albert Besnard, was born on June 2, 1849, in Paris to an artistic family: his father, Louis Adolphe Ferdinand Besnard, was a history painter and pupil of Ingres, while his mother, Marie Louise Pauline Vaillant, was a noted miniaturist trained under Lizinska de Mirbel. Precociously talented, he began his training under Jean-François Brémond before entering the École de...