Inside Attire of the French Citizen
Medium
Etching with some aquatint
Dimensions
image: 12 1/8 x 7 in. (30.8 x 17.8 cm) plate: 13 1/2 x 7 7/8 in. (34.3 x 20 cm) sheet: 15 11/16 x 10 3/16 in. (39.8 x 25.8 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959
Accession Number
59.596.53
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Inside Attire of the French Citizen** (1794) is a provocative etching with subtle aquatint by two luminaries of revolutionary France: Jacques-Louis David, the Neoclassical master and fervent supporter of the Revolution, and Baron Dominique Vivant Denon an artist-diplomat who later shaped the Louvre's collections. Measuring roughly 12 x 7 inches, this print from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department zeroes in on male figures, using attire as a lens into identity and ideology. Created amid the French Revolution's turbulent Reign of Terror—just before David's imprison...
About the Artist
Jacques Louis David|baron Dominique Vivant Denon · 1748–1825
Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825), born in Paris on August 30 to a prosperous family, faced early tragedy when his father was killed in a duel around age nine. Raised by his mother's two architect uncles after his mother departed, David overcame family resistance to architecture and a facial tumor that hindered his speech and studies at the Collège des Quatre-Nations. He began training under the Roc...