The Holy Family with Putti
Medium
Etching on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image: 28.8 × 40 cm (11 3/8 × 15 3/4 in.); Sheet: 30 × 40.5 cm (11 13/16 × 16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
188846
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Laurent de la Hyre studied at Fontainebleau between 1622 and 1625, where he probably learned printmaking. This etching, made in 1640 after a drawing now in Darmstadt, has been extolled as one of "masterpieces of French printmaking" by the art historians Pierre Rosenberg and Jacques Thuillier. A cluster of putti gather around the Virgin and infant Christ, who selects an apple from an overturned basket of fruit, reflecting his mission to redeem original sin.
About the Artist
Laurent de La Hyre · 1606–1656
Laurent de La Hyre (1606–1656) was a French painter whose elegant, classical compositions placed him among the finest artists of the first generation of French Baroque painters working in Paris. Born into an artistic family — his father Étienne de La Hyre was also a painter — Laurent received his early training largely through independent study rather than formal apprenticeship under a single domi...