Beggar Woman Receiving Charity
1622 or later
Medium
etching on laid paper
Dimensions
sheet (trimmed to plate mark): 14.2 × 9.3 cm (5 9/16 × 3 11/16 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1949.5.328
Art Historical Context
This poignant etching, *Beggar Woman Receiving Charity is created after the renowned French artist Jacques Callot, dating to 1622 or. Callot, a master printmaker of the Baroque era, was celebrated for his vivid depictions of social outcasts, particularly in his influential series *Les Gueux (The Beggars), produced around 1622–1623. Captured on a modest scale—trimmed to just 14.2 × 9.3 cm—this intimate print portrays a moment of human kindness amid hardship, reflecting the stark realities of poverty in 17th-century Europe, where economic strife and urban beggary were commonplace. Etched on lai...
About the Artist
after Jacques Callot
**Jacques Callot (c. 1592–1635)**, the master whose designs inspired the works attributed "after Jacques Callot," was a pioneering French Baroque printmaker and draftsman born in Nancy, capital of the independent Duchy of Lorraine (now northeastern France). From a noble family—his father served as master of ceremonies and herald-at-arms to the Duke of Lorraine—young Callot was apprenticed to a gol...