Provins 1814
Medium
Lithograph in black on ivory wove paper
Dimensions
Image, without borders: 17.7 × 26.6 cm (7 × 10 1/2 in.); Sheet: 28.5 × 39.8 cm (11 1/4 × 15 11/16 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
48450
Art Historical Context
Denis Auguste Marie Raffet’s *Provins 1814* captures a moment from the closing years of the Napoleonic era in a finely detailed lithograph. Created in 1833, two decades after the events it portrays, the print invites viewers to reflect on the passage of time and the enduring memory of conflict in French history. The modest scale of the image—roughly 7 by 10½ inches—encourages intimate viewing, drawing attention to the artist’s careful rendering of landscape and figures. Lithography, still a relatively new medium in the 1830s, allowed Raffet to achieve rich tonal contrasts and spontaneous line...
About the Artist
Denis Auguste Marie Raffet · 1804–1860
Denis Auguste Marie Raffet (1804–1860) was born in Paris and displayed an early aptitude for drawing, though his initial apprenticeship was to a wood turner. He pursued art through evening classes and, at age eighteen, joined the workshop of Cabanel as a porcelain painter, where he met Rudor, who taught him lithography. Raffet studied under Nicolas Toussaint Charlet from 1824 to 1829 and completed...