Earth
1630
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Sheet: 5 13/16 × 4 5/16 in. (14.8 × 10.9 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1951
Accession Number
51.501.2279
Tags
Art Historical Context
Abraham Bosse's *Earth* (1630) is a delicate etching that captures the allegorical essence of the natural world during the Baroque era in France. Measuring just 5 13/16 × 4 5/16 inches, this intimate print from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings Prints department likely personifies the element of Earth through motifs of women, fruit, and deer— of fertility, abundance, the untamed wilderness. Bosse, a pioneering French printmaker under Louis XIII, was renowned for his precise line work and advocacy for etching as a democratic medium, making art accessible beyond elite painters. Etching,...
About the Artist
Abraham Bosse · 1602–1676
Abraham Bosse (1604–1676) was a French printmaker and theorist whose approximately 1,600 etchings provide an unparalleled visual record of 17th-century French life. Born to Huguenot parents in Tours, he trained in Paris under Melchior Tavernier and became a devoted follower of Jacques Callot's technical innovations. Bosse's meticulous etchings depicted subjects ranging from daily life and fashion ...