A Woman Reading, after Pieter Janssens Elinga
Medium
Watercolor and gouache
Dimensions
Sheet: 5 7/8 x 4 1/2 in. (14.9 x 11.5cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Mr. and Mrs. Isaac D. Fletcher Collection, Bequest of Isaac D. Fletcher, 1917
Accession Number
17.120.232
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the intimate watercolor and gouache *A Woman Reading, after Pieter Janssens Elinga* (1846–47), French artist François Bonvin pays homage to the 17th-century Dutch master Pieter Janssens Elinga This delicate sheet, measuring just 5 7/8 x 4 1/2 inches, captures a serene domestic interior: a woman absorbed in a book, embodying the quiet contemplation of everyday life. Bonvin, a Realist painter known for his meticulous still lifes and genre scenes, meticulously recreates Elinga's style, evoking the Dutch Golden Age's focus on cozy, light-filled rooms and human moments. Created during the mid-1...
About the Artist
François Bonvin|Pieter Janssens Elinga
François Bonvin (1817–1887) was a French Realist painter whose quiet, meticulously observed canvases of domestic interiors and humble working-class subjects placed him among the most thoughtful and committed practitioners of the Realist movement in nineteenth-century France. Born in Vaugirard, on the outskirts of Paris, Bonvin came from modest origins and largely educated himself as an artist thro...