Le baiser envoyé
Medium
etching and engraving
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Widener Collection
Accession Number
1942.9.2354
Art Historical Context
**Le baiser envoyé (The Sent Kiss)**, an exquisite 1771 etching and engraving by Augustin de Saint-Aubin Jean-Baptiste Greuze, a tender moment of youthful affection. Greuze, a leading French painter of the late Rococo and early Neoclassical periods, was renowned for his sentimental genre that evoked moral lessons through everyday emotions. Here, Saint-Aubin masterfully reproduces Greuze's composition, likely depicting a young girl blowing a kiss, innocence with subtle drama—a hallmark of Greuze's style that charmed 18th-century audiences amid the Enlightenment's focus on human sentiment. The ...