Plowing
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Sheet: 12 3/16 × 18 7/8 in. (31 × 48 cm) Plate: 10 5/8 × 8 7/16 in. (27 × 21.5 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1962
Accession Number
63.625.436
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Plowing**, a captivating etching from 1864 by French artists Charles Jacque and Liénard, transports viewers to the timeless rhythm of rural life. Jacque, a prominent figure in the Barbizon school was renowned for his pastoral scenes featuring animals and peasants at work. This collaborative print depicts sturdy horses pulling a plow through furrowed fields, guided by determined men—a poignant snapshot of 19th-century French agriculture during the Second Empire era, when industrialization loomed but the countryside still embodied traditional labor and harmony with nature. Rendered in etching...
About the Artist
Charles Jacque|François Liénard
Charles-Émile Jacque (1813–1894) was a pioneering French painter, engraver, and illustrator whose career bridged the worlds of printmaking and pastoral painting. Born in Paris amid a difficult childhood, he apprenticed at age seventeen to a map engraver, mastering drypoint technique and producing his first etching in 1830—a copy of a head after Rembrandt. After serving seven years in the French Ar...