Ladies and Gentlemen Dancing
1781/1823
Medium
Brush and gray wash with black crayon, on ivory laid paper, laid down on card
Dimensions
9.8 × 14.3 cm (3 7/8 × 5 11/16 in.)
Classification
ink or chalk wash
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
81210
Art Historical Context
**Ladies and Gentlemen Dancing** Paul Gregoire captures a lively social scene from the late 18th to early 19th century, dated between 1781 and1823. This intimate drawing, housed in the Institute of Chicago's Prints Drawings Department, depicts elegant figures mid-dance, evoking refined leisure pursuits of the Enlightenment era and post-Revolutionary Europe. Gregoire's work reflects a time when ballroom gatherings symbolized social harmony amid political upheaval, blending aristocratic grace with emerging bourgeois culture. Executed in brush and gray wash with black crayon on ivory laid paper—...