The Newspaper
1883
Medium
Etching and drypoint in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image/plate: 37.7 × 29.1 cm (14 7/8 × 11 1/2 in.); Sheet: 55.9 × 37.5 cm (22 1/16 × 14 13/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
220329
Art Historical Context
James Tissot's *The Newspaper* (1883) captures a slice of modern life in late 19th-century Paris, where the artist—known for his elegant depictions of bourgeois society—shifted from painting to printmaking. A Belgian-born Frenchman who thrived in London's Victorian art scene after the Franco-Prussian War, Tot produced a series of intricate etchings around this time, showcasing his keen eye for contemporary fashion, leisure, and urban rhythms. This work reflects the growing cultural fascination with mass media, as newspapers became symbols of an informed, cosmopolitan world. Rendered in etchin...
About the Artist
James Tissot · 1836–1902
James Tissot (1836–1902) was a French painter and printmaker who spent much of his career in England and became renowned for his meticulously detailed depictions of fashionable Victorian society. Born Jacques Joseph Tissot in Nantes, he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris under Louis Lamothe and Hippolyte Flandrin and exhibited at the Salon from 1859. Tissot's early career in Paris produ...