Landscape with Peasants Fording a Stream
Medium
Red chalk with brush and brown and gray wash
Dimensions
12 5/16 x 16 1/8 in. (31.3 x 41 cm.)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Sally and Howard Lepow and Stephen A. Geiger Gifts, and Mary Oenslager Fund, 2005
Accession Number
2005.168
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
Art Historical Context
Jean-Baptiste Le Prince’s “Landscape with Peasants Fording a Stream” captures a quiet moment of rural life in 1756. Created during the height of the French Enlightenment, the drawing reflects a growing artistic interest in everyday scenes and the natural world rather than grand historical subjects. Le Prince, a French draftsman and printmaker, often explored such pastoral themes, blending observation with gentle idealization. The work is executed in red chalk with brush and brown and gray wash, a technique prized in eighteenth-century France for its ability to suggest both delicate line and atmospheric depth. The medium allows Le Prince to render the flowing water, foliage, and figures with soft tonal gradations, giving the landscape a lively yet harmonious quality. Measuring just over 12 by 16 inches, this intimate drawing invites viewers to appreciate the simple dignity of peasants, animals, and river landscape, highlighting the period’s appreciation for nature and ordinary human experience.
About the Artist
Jean-Baptiste Le Prince · 1734–1781
Comment on works: Genre; Landscapes; Portraits; Copper engraver; Illustrator; Master draughtsman