Phrosine and Mélidore
Medium
Etching, engraving, stipple, and roulette in black on ivory wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 21.2 × 14.5 cm (8 3/8 × 5 3/4 in.); Plate: 34.3 × 25.1 cm (13 9/16 × 9 15/16 in.); Sheet: 29.2 × 21.3 cm (11 1/2 × 8 7/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
103889
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Prud’hon created this print as an illustration for a 1797 edition of Gentil Bernard’s sensual and tragic poem of the same name. The young Phrosine, at right, falls in love with Mélidore, but her jealous brothers separate the two and banish Mélidore to a life as a hermit on a nearby island. Desperate to see her beloved, Phrosine swims across the channel at night, and collapses, naked, into her lover’s arms.
About the Artist
Pierre Paul Prud'hon · 1758–1823
Pierre Paul Prud'hon (1758–1823) was a French painter and draughtsman whose dreamy, sensuous art occupied a singular position between the Neoclassicism and Romanticism that competed for dominance in French painting around 1800. Born in Cluny in Burgundy, he received his early artistic training at the Dijon Academy before winning the Prix de Rome of the Estates of Burgundy, which allowed him to spe...