Strolling Couple with a Dog
Medium
Graphite on faded green laid paper
Dimensions
169 x 107 mm
Classification
Drawings
Culture
French
Department
Robert Lehman Collection
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number
1975.1.675
Tags
About this artwork
Gandolphe Jean Emile Francis Moutier's "Strolling Couple with a Dog" (circa 1820) captures early 19th-century French bourgeois leisure with economical yet evocative draftsmanship. Executed in graphite on faded green laid paper (169 x 107 mm), this intimate drawing depicts a fashionably dressed couple taking their daily promenade, accompanied by a small dog—activities central to Restoration and July Monarchy social life. The work exemplifies the period's taste for genre scenes documenting contemp...
Art Historical Context
In the early 19th century, France's Restoration and July Monarchy eras, the leisurely promenade was a hallmark of bourgeois social life. Gandolphe Jean Emile Moutier's *Strolling Couple with a* (ca. 1820) charmingly captures this moment: a fashionably dressed couples arm-in-arm with their petite canine companion. This intimate graphite drawing on faded green laid paper ( x 107 mm) the period's fascination with genre scenes—everyday vignettes of manners, costumes, and relationships—echoing masters like Louis-Léopold Boilly and Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier. Moutier (1793–1854), active in a tran...