An Aristocratic Family Visiting Paupers
mid-18th–18th century
Medium
Pen and gray ink
Dimensions
sheet: 6 7/16 x 8 13/16 in. (16.3 x 22.4 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Van Day Truex Fund, 2008
Accession Number
2008.507
Tags
Art Historical Context
Daniel Nikolaus Chodowie, a prominent Prussian artist of the Rococo era, captured everyday social dynamics in this mid18th-century drawing, *An Aristocratic Family Visiting Paup*. Rendered in pen and gray ink on a modest sheet measuring 6 7/16 x 8 13/16 inches, the work exemplifies Chodowiecki's mastery of intricate line work and subtle tonal shading. His style, blending Rococo elegance with emerging Enlightenment realism, often highlighted moral contrasts in bourgeois and aristocratic life through quick, expressive sketches like this one. The scene depicts an elegant family—men, women, boys,...
About the Artist
Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki · 1726–1801
Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki (1726–1801) was a German painter and printmaker of Polish-Huguenot descent who became the most celebrated graphic artist in 18th-century Germany. Born in Danzig (now Gdańsk), he created approximately 2,000 etchings that serve as an invaluable visual record of German bourgeois life during the Enlightenment. Largely self-taught, Chodowiecki moved to Berlin in 1743 and ach...