La Partie de Musique (The Music Party)
Medium
Engraving in black on paper
Dimensions
sheet: 41.5 × 49.3 cm (16 3/8 × 19 7/16 in.); Plate: 38.5 × 46.8 cm (15 3/16 × 18 7/16 in.); Image: 35 × 43 cm (13 13/16 × 16 15/16 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
30023
Art Historical Context
Vincent-Marie Langlois’s *La Partie de Musique* (The Music Party), created in 1790, captures a refined social gathering centered around music. Produced as an engraving in black on paper, the reflects the late eighteenth-century taste for elegant domestic scenes that celebrated leisure, conversation, and the performing arts among the French upper classes. The sizable sheet, measuring roughly 41.5 by 49.3 centimeters, suggests it was intended for display rather than merely as a book illustration. Engraving allowed artists like Langlois to translate compositions into multiple impressions, making...