Seated Woman Weeping infront of Flowers

Seated Woman Weeping infront of Flowers by Anonymous, French, 18th century

Medium

Pen and black ink, brush and gray wash, heightened with white on blue paper. Framing lines in pen and black ink

Dimensions

sheet: 6 9/16 x 10 3/8 in. (16.6 x 26.4 cm)

Classification

Drawings

Department

Drawings and Prints

Museum

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Credit

Gift of Regina Slatkin, 1963

Accession Number

63.712.28

Tags

SadnessWomen

Art Historical Context

This delicate drawing, created by an anonymous French artist in the 18th century, captures poignant moment of private sorrow. A woman sits in quiet grief before a cluster of flowers, her posture and expression conveying deep emotion. Rendered in pen and black with gray wash and white highlights on blue paper, the work uses the cool tone of the sheet to heighten the sense of melancholy, while the white accents bring a subtle luminosity to her figure and the blossoms. The medium itself reflects a popular 18th-century French technique, allowing artists to achieve rich tonal contrasts and express...

About the Artist

Anonymous, French, 18th century · 17001800

The artist known as Anonymous, French, 18th century, represents a collective of unidentified talents active roughly between 1700 and 1800, a period of profound artistic evolution in France from the opulent Rococo to the austere dawn of Neoclassicism and Revolutionary fervor. Little is documented about their personal training or mentors, as their anonymity obscures individual biographies, though th...

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