The Four Times of Day: Le Matin
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
10 5/8 x 13 3/4 in. (27 x 35 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Bequest of W. Gedney Beatty, by exchange, 2008
Accession Number
2008.183
Tags
Art Historical Context
Created in 1776 by designer Jean-Baptiste Huet I and printmaker Gilles Demarteau, *The Four Times of Day: Le Matin* captures the gentle rhythms of a rural morning. This etching belongs to a four-part series the hours of the day, a popular theme in eighteenth-century France that celebrated nature’s quiet cycles. Huet, renowned for his charming pastoral subjects, fills the scene with women tending sheep and horses, accompanied by watchful dogs—elements that evoke the idealized countryside life cherished by Parisian audiences of the period. Printed in the delicate crayon-manner technique for whi...