Ecran à l'antique [et] Ecran

About this artwork

Research in Progress

Art Historical Context

This print by Juste-François Boucher, created around 1775, captures the refined decorative tastes of late eighteenth-century France. As a work on paper classified simply as a print, it likely served as a design model or record of elegant household furnishings. The title “Ecran à l’antique [et] Ecran” points to screens—perhaps folding or fire screens—rendered in the “antique” or classical manner then coming into fashion. Boucher, son of the celebrated rococo painter François Boucher, worked during a period when French design was shifting toward cleaner lines and motifs drawn from ancient Greece and Rome. Prints like this one played an important role in spreading such ideas among craftsmen, patrons, and collectors. Acquired by the Smithsonian American Art Museum through its Advisory Council, the sheet now offers today’s visitors a window into how neoclassical elegance was imagined and circulated more than two centuries ago.