Man Reading a Book
Salomon Gessner
1764
Medium
Etching on cream laid paper
Dimensions
Plate: 21.5 × 18.7 cm (8 1/2 × 7 3/8 in.); Sheet: 38.9 × 28 cm (15 3/8 × 11 1/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
129444
About the Artist
Salomon Gessner · 1730–1788
Salomon Gessner was born in Zurich in 1730 into a family of printers and publishers, an upbringing that placed books, images, and ideas at the center of his world from an early age. Though largely self-taught as a visual artist, he received some instruction during a period in Berlin, where he encountered the German Rococo tradition, and his mature work reflects a deep absorption in the pastoral li...