Woman in Front of a Fireplace
Medium
black chalk and gray wash heightened with white chalk, squared in black chalk, on blue wove paper
Dimensions
{"sheet":{"height":0.46,"width":0.37}}
Classification
Drawing
Department
Drawings
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
Accession Number
1974.93
Tags
About this artwork
Marie-Élisabeth Godard d’Aucourt de Saint-Just, shown here, belonged to a wealthy French shipbuilding family. Louis Léopold Boilly probably created this drawing to present for approval the preliminary composition of d’Aucourt’s painted portrait. The grid overlaying the drawing suggests a direct transfer to canvas; the image changed dramatically in the painting, where d’Aucourt appears in a grotto, unoccupied. That composition aligned with gender norms at the time that placed women in the natural...