Le Grand Pénitencier
n.d.
Medium
Black chalk, pen and gray wash
Dimensions
4 13/16 x 7 in. (12.2 x 17.8 cm.)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Sally Sample Aall, Anne and Jean Bonna, Sarah and Werner H. Kramarsky, and Adriana Mnuchin Foundation Gifts, and Van Day Truex Fund, 1996
Accession Number
1996.24
Tags
Art Historical Context
Augustin Pajou’s *Le Grand Pénitencier* offers a compact yet evocative glimpse into an eighteenth-century prison interior. Rendered in black chalk with pen and gray wash on a sheet just under five by seven inches, the drawing depicts men and women confined within a stark architectural setting. Pajou, best known as a leading French neoclassical sculptor, here turns his attention to the human figure and spatial drama, using fluid lines and subtle washes to convey both the weight of stone walls and the varied postures of the inmates. The choice of medium is particularly effective for such a subj...
About the Artist
Augustin Pajou · 1730–1809
Augustin Pajou (1730–1809) was one of the foremost French sculptors of the second half of the eighteenth century, whose long and distinguished career bridged the Rococo grace of the Ancien Régime and the more sober classicizing spirit that emerged in the revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. Born in Paris into a family with artistic connections — his father was an ornamental sculptor — Pajou showe...