Woman Seated before a Table
Medium
Lithograph from two stones on ivory wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 14.3 × 12.6 cm (5 11/16 × 5 in.); Sheet: 26.7 × 18 cm (10 9/16 × 7 1/8 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
41777
Art Historical Context
**Woman Seated before a Table (1823) is a delicate lithograph by Dominique-Vivant Denon the multifaceted French artist, diplomat, antiquarian who served as the first director of the Louvre Museum Napoleon Bonaparte. Created just two years before Denon's death at age 78, this intimate scene captures a woman poised at a table, rendered with the precision and elegance characteristic of his neoclassical influences blended with emerging Romantic sensibilities. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints Drawings Department, it measures a modest 14.3 × 12.6 cm, inviting close contemplation of it...
About the Artist
Dominique-Vivant Denon · 1747–1825
Dominique-Vivant Denon (1747–1825) was a French artist, diplomat, archaeologist, and museum administrator who became the first director of the Musée du Louvre — a role that earned him the title of "the father of all museums." Born Baron Vivant de Non in Chalon-sur-Saône, Burgundy, he was educated for a career in diplomacy and served under Louis XV and Louis XVI as a gentleman of the court and as a...