Beggar Woman Receiving Charity
c. 1622
Medium
etching on laid paper
Dimensions
sheet (trimmed to plate mark): 14 × 9.1 cm (5 1/2 × 3 9/16 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
R.L. Baumfeld Collection
Accession Number
1969.15.514
Art Historical Context
Jacques Callot's *Beggar Woman Receiving Charity (c. 1622) is a poignant etching from his renowned *Beggar* (or *Les Gueux*) series, capturing the gritty realities of 17th French society. This small-scale print (14 × 9.1 cm) depicts a ragged woman humbly accepting alms, emblematic of the widespread poverty during the reign of Louis XIII amid economic hardship, famines, and the early stages of the Thirty Years' War. Callot, a masterful Baroque printmaker from Lorraine, used these works to document the vagabond underclass—beggars, gypsies, and outcasts—blending social observation with dramatic s...
About the Artist
Jacques Callot · 1592–1635
Jacques Callot (1592–1635) was a French printmaker and draftsman from the Duchy of Lorraine, widely regarded as one of the first great artists to practice the graphic arts exclusively. His more than 1,400 etchings chronicled the breadth of 17th-century life, from Medici court festivities to the brutal realities of warfare. Callot revolutionized etching through technical innovations including the é...