Classical Landscape with a Shepherd
Medium
Black chalk, gray wash, heightened with white chalk and touches of gouache, on beige paper, lined
Dimensions
11 15/16 x 15 11/16 in. (30.4 x 39.9cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harry G. Sperling Fund, 1992
Accession Number
1992.27
Tags
Art Historical Context
Jean Victor Bertin's *Classical Landscape with a Shepherd (1803) captures the serene beauty of an idealized pastoral world, featuring a lone shepherd amid grazing sheep, lush trees, and rolling hills. Created during the early Napoleonic era in France this drawing reflects the Neoclassical movement's reverence for ancient Roman and Greek ideals, evoking the harmonious, timeless landscapes of Virgil's poetry and masters like Claude LorrainExecuted in black chalk with gray wash, heightened with white chalk and subtle gouache touches on beige paper, the work showcases Bertin's masterful use of mix...
About the Artist
Jean Victor Bertin · 1775–1842
Jean-Victor Bertin (1767–1842) was a leading French neoclassical landscape painter whose meticulous classical compositions bridged the grandeur of historical landscapes with emerging plein air naturalism. Born in Paris on March 20, 1767, to a master wig-maker, Bertin entered the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1785 at age eighteen as a pupil of history painter Gabriel-François Doyen...