Hab.t de la Corse, from the playing cards (for quartets) "Costumes des Peuples Étrangers"
Medium
Etching and hand coloring (watercolor)
Dimensions
3 3/16 × 2 1/16 in. (8.1 × 5.3 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of the Estate of James Hazen Hyde, 1959
Accession Number
59.654.17(28)
Tags
Art Historical Context
This delicate etching, titled *Hab.t de la Corse* (“Costume of Corsica”), belongs to an 18th-century French set of playing cards known as *Costumes des Peuples Étrangers*. Created anonymously between 1700 and 1799, the card was designed for a quartet game in which players collected matching sets of figures from distant lands. Measuring just over three inches tall, the print was etched and then finished by hand with watercolor, a technique that gave each card a lively, personal touch while keeping production costs low. The image portrays Corsican men and women in traditional dress, complete wi...
About the Artist
Anonymous, French, 18th century · 1700–1800
The artist known as Anonymous, French, 18th century, represents a collective of unidentified talents active roughly between 1700 and 1800, a period of profound artistic evolution in France from the opulent Rococo to the austere dawn of Neoclassicism and Revolutionary fervor. Little is documented about their personal training or mentors, as their anonymity obscures individual biographies, though th...