Forest Edge at Twilight
ca. 1866
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Sheet: 18 1/2 × 25 3/8 in. (47 × 64.5 cm) Plate: 13 3/8 × 18 1/2 in. (34 × 47 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Howard Mansfield, 1951
Accession Number
51.647.1
Art Historical Context
**Forest Edge at Twilight** Charles Jacque, created around 1866, invites visitors into the tranquil world of 19th-century rural France. Jacque, a prominent member of the Barbizon School alongside artists like Millet and Rousseau, specialized in pastoral scenes that celebrated the unadorned beauty of the countryside. This etching depicts a forest's edge bathed in the soft, fading light of dusk, evoking the movement's emphasis on direct observation of nature and a rejection of Romantic idealization in favor of realistic, atmospheric landscapes. As an etching, the work showcases Jacque's mastery...
About the Artist
Charles Jacque
Charles-Émile Jacque (1813–1894) was a pioneering French painter, engraver, and illustrator whose career bridged the worlds of printmaking and pastoral painting. Born in Paris amid a difficult childhood, he apprenticed at age seventeen to a map engraver, mastering drypoint technique and producing his first etching in 1830—a copy of a head after Rembrandt. After serving seven years in the French Ar...