The Holy Family in an Interior
early 19th century
Medium
Pen and brown ink and wash on wove paper
Dimensions
sheet: 6 11/16 x 4 1/8 in. (17 x 10.5 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1963
Accession Number
63.617.77
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the intimate drawing *The Holy Family in an*, created by E. La Touche in the early 19 century, we encounter a tender domestic scene of sacred figures: the Virgin Mary, the Christ Child, and Saint Joseph gathered in a humble interior. This classic Christian iconography, rooted in Renaissance and Baroque traditions, persisted into the Romantic era, offering viewers a sense of spiritual warmth and familial devotion amid the era's social upheavals following the Napoleonic Wars. Executed in pen and brown ink with wash on wove paper—a smooth, machine-made support popular from the late 18th centu...