Hab.t du Port Francais from playing cards "Jeu d'Or"
Medium
Etching and hand coloring (watercolor)
Dimensions
3 3/16 × 2 1/16 in. (8.1 × 5.3 cm)
Classification
Prints|Ornament & Architecture
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of the Estate of James Hazen Hyde, 1959
Accession Number
59.654.14(28)
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the whimsical world of 18th French playing cards with *Hab.t du Port Franc* from the *Jeu d'Or* deck. This petite etching, measuring just 3 3/16 × 2 1/16 inches, captures a profiled male figure—likely a resident of a French port—in delicate lines enhanced by vibrant hand-coloring in watercolor. Created anonymously between 1700 and 1799, it exemplifies the ornamental prints popular in Europe's courts and salons, where playing cards doubled as miniature works of art. Etching allowed for precise, reproducible designs, while the hand-applied watercolor brought each card to life with per...
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...