A Park with Figures at a Statue near Water
1775 (?)
Medium
Gouache, watercolour; framing lines in pen and brown ink
Dimensions
sheet: 10 7/8 x 15 3/8 in. (27.6 x 39 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Anonymous Gift, 2009
Accession Number
2009.497
Tags
Art Historical Context
Salomon Gessner, a Swiss poet and painter celebrated for his idyllic landscapes, created *A Park with Figures at Statue near Water* around 1775. This delicate gouache and watercolor drawing, accented by framing lines in pen and brown ink measures 10⅞ × 15⅜ inches and captures the essence of 18th-century pastoral reverie. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, it exemplifiesessner's signature style, blending Rococo elegance with emerging Romantic sensibilities, where harmonious nature scenes evoke poetic tranquility. The composition depicts a serene park set...
About the Artist
Salomon Gessner · 1730–1788
Salomon Gessner was born in Zurich in 1730 into a family of printers and publishers, an upbringing that placed books, images, and ideas at the center of his world from an early age. Though largely self-taught as a visual artist, he received some instruction during a period in Berlin, where he encountered the German Rococo tradition, and his mature work reflects a deep absorption in the pastoral li...