The Promenade on the Boulevard
Medium
Black chalk, with brush and black, brown and gray wash, heightened with white gouache, on cream laid paper
Dimensions
15.1 × 22.9 cm (6 × 9 1/16 in.)
Classification
prints and drawing
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
199587
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Gabriel de Saint-Aubin is prized today for his evocation of 18th-century Parisian society. This glimpse of personnages de qualité (as the work was once titled) relates to one of the very few paintings known by him and captures fashionable life around 1760. The black chalk underdrawing includes ruled lines mapping the perspective of the boulevard, reflecting the artist’s role as a professor in an architecture academy.
About the Artist
Gabriel Jacques de Saint-Aubin · 1724–1780
Gabriel Jacques de Saint-Aubin (14 April 1724 – 14 February 1780) was born in Paris into an artistic family — one of fourteen children of the court embroiderer and engraver G.-G. de Saint-Aubin. Art ran deep in the family: his brothers Charles Germain and Augustin de Saint-Aubin were also accomplished artists. Gabriel received his earliest training at home before entering the studios of Étienne Je...