Four Ladies Sitting around a Table Occupied with Needlework, Reading, and Writing; verso: Study of a Woman with Needlework
Medium
Graphite
Dimensions
4 3/4 x 1 15/16 in. (12.1 x 5 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, C. G. Boerner Gift, 2006
Accession Number
2006.492a, b
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the intimate graphite drawing *Four Ladies Sitting around a Table Occupied with Needlework, Reading, and Writing* (1758), Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki captures serene moment of domestic life among middle-class women. Created when the artist was just 20, this small-scale work (4 3/4 x 1 15/16 in.) showcases four figures gathered at a table, absorbed in needlework, reading, and writing—activities that highlight the refined leisure and education of 18th-century European women. The verso features a quick study of a woman with needlework, revealing Chodowiecki's preparatory process. Chodowiecki,...
About the Artist
Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki · 1726–1801
Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki (1726–1801) was a German painter and printmaker of Polish-Huguenot descent who became the most celebrated graphic artist in 18th-century Germany. Born in Danzig (now Gdańsk), he created approximately 2,000 etchings that serve as an invaluable visual record of German bourgeois life during the Enlightenment. Largely self-taught, Chodowiecki moved to Berlin in 1743 and ach...