The Enamored Couple: Lucelle and Ascagnes
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Sheet: 10 15/16 × 7 9/16 in. (27.8 × 19.2 cm) Plate: 8 1/8 × 6 7/16 in. (20.7 × 16.3 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1932
Accession Number
32.17.7
Tags
Art Historical Context
Willem Pietersz. Buytewech's *The Enamored Couple: Lucelle and Ascagnes* (1616) captures a tender moment between two elegantly dressed figures, rendered in the intimate scale of an etching. Buytewech, a Dutch artist from Haarlem (1591–1624), was among the first to depict modern life with stylish, elongated figures in contemporary fashion, foreshadowing the Dutch Golden Age's genre painting tradition. This print, measuring just over 10 by 7 inches on the sheet, exemplifies his skill in etching—a technique where acid bites into a metal plate to create fine, expressive lines—allowing detailed tex...