Les Filets (The Nets)
Medium
etching and aquatint printed in brown on laid paper
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund
Accession Number
1974.33.58
Rights
Public Domain
Art Historical Context
Jean-Baptiste Le Prince’s 1771 print *Les Filets (The Nets)* captures a quiet moment of everyday labor, likely depicting figures handling fishing nets. A French artist who spent several years in Russia, Le Prince became celebrated for bringing fresh scenes of Russian peasant life to European audiences. Created just a few years after his return to France, the work reflects the period’s growing fascination with distant cultures and the dignity of ordinary work. The print’s real innovation lies in its medium. Le Prince was among the first to master aquatint in France, a technique that produces soft, tonal areas resembling watercolor washes. By combining etching’s precise lines with aquatint’s velvety textures and printing the entire composition in warm brown ink on laid paper, he achieved a luminous, atmospheric effect that feels remarkably painterly for a print. Today housed in the National Gallery of Art thanks to the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, *Les Filets* demonstrates how reproductive techniques could rival drawings in expressiveness. It invites viewers to appreciate both the subject’s humble humanity and the technical artistry that made such tonal richness possible in the late eighteenth century.
About the Artist
Jean-Baptiste Le Prince · 1734–1781
Comment on works: Genre; Landscapes; Portraits; Copper engraver; Illustrator; Master draughtsman