La matrone d'Ephese
Medium
etching and engraving
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1953.6.214
Art Historical Context
**La Matrone d'Éphèse** is a captivating 1793 etching and engraving by Jean-Louis Delignon and-Jean Duclos, faithfully reproducing a composition by the renowned Rococo master Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Housed in the National Gallery of Art's Rosen Collection (Department CG-E), this print captures Fragonard's signature playful sensuality, drawing from the ancient tale in Petronius' *Satyricon* of a devoted widow from Ephesus whose grief is tenderly interrupted by a soldier's affections. Fragonard's original paintings on this theme, created in the 1770s, exemplify late Rococo's exuberant eroticism a...