Fishermen with Children, plate two from Paysages Dédiés à M. Warelet
1764
Medium
Etching on cream laid paper
Dimensions
Plate: 21.2 × 18.9 cm (8 3/8 × 7 1/2 in.); Sheet: 38.9 × 27.6 cm (15 3/8 × 10 7/8 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
129438
Art Historical Context
Salomon Gessner *Fishermen with Children*, plate two from the series *aysages Dédiés à M. Warelet* (1764), captures the serene beauty of everyday rural life in an etching on cream laid paper. This intimate print, measuring 21.2 × 18.9 cm on a larger sheet, depicts fishermen and playful children amid a lush landscape, evoking Gessner’s signature idyllic pastoral scenes. Dedicated to the patron M. Warelet, the reflects the Swiss artist-poet’s fascination with harmonious nature, blending poetry and visual art in the Rococo tradition. Gessner (1730–1788), a celebrated figure in 18th-century Europ...
About the Artist
Salomon Gessner · 1730–1788
Salomon Gessner was born in Zurich in 1730 into a family of printers and publishers, an upbringing that placed books, images, and ideas at the center of his world from an early age. Though largely self-taught as a visual artist, he received some instruction during a period in Berlin, where he encountered the German Rococo tradition, and his mature work reflects a deep absorption in the pastoral li...