At the Saint-Jean-de-Monts Fair
Medium
Etching on cream wove paper
Dimensions
Image/plate: 14.7 × 21.2 cm (5 13/16 × 8 3/8 in.); Sheet: 18.3 × 24.4 cm (7 1/4 × 9 5/8 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
31070
Art Historical Context
**At the Saint-Jean-des Fair**, created by French artist Louis Auguste Lepère 1907, captures the lively spirit of a traditional provincial fair in Saint-Jean-de-Monts, coastal town in western France's Vendée region Lepère, renowned for his masterful prints of everyday French life—from bustling Paris streets to rural scenes—was a key figure in the late 19th- and early 20th-century etching revival. This work reflects the Belle Époque era's fascination with leisure and local customs, offering a snapshot of community gatherings amid the era's social and economic vibrancy. Rendered as an etching o...
About the Artist
Louis Auguste Lepère · 1849–1918
Louis-Auguste Lepère (1849–1918) was born in Paris on November 30 to the sculptor François Lepère, immersing him early in the artistic world. At age thirteen, he apprenticed in the studio of the English wood engraver Joseph Burn-Smeeton, training there from 1862 to 1867, and later attended drawing courses under Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran at the Petite École (now École nationale supérieure des art...