Fisherman's Family
c. 1883
Medium
Watercolor, with brush and brown ink (discolored from purple), over graphite, on cream wove paper
Dimensions
25.3 × 20 cm (10 × 7 7/8 in.)
Classification
watercolor
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
46212
Art Historical Context
Pierre Puvis de Chav, a leading French Symbolist painter of the late 19th, created *Fisherman's Family* around 1883. Renowned for his poetic, dreamlike murals adorning public buildings like the Paris Panthéon, Puvis often depicted idealized human figures in harmonious, timeless settings. This intimate watercolor study reflects his classical style, blending soft, ethereal forms with a sense of serene dignity, evoking the simple nobility of everyday life. Executed in watercolor with brush and brown ink—originally vibrant purple but now discolored—over graphite on cream wove paper, the work meas...
About the Artist
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes · 1824–1898
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824–1898) was a French painter who became the foremost muralist of nineteenth-century France and a crucial bridge between academic tradition and modernism. Born in Lyon to a prosperous family, he studied briefly with Henri Scheffer and Thomas Couture in Paris and traveled to Italy, where the frescoes of the Italian Renaissance made a lasting impression on his artistic v...