Young Girl Holding a Bird
mid-1700s
Medium
chalk-manner etching and engraving
Dimensions
{"sheet":{"height":0.223,"width":0.269},"platemark":{"height":0.215,"width":0.257}}
Classification
Department
Prints
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland
Accession Number
1927.335
Tags
About this artwork
In 1757, a printmaker named Jean-Charles François developed a printing technique to make facsimiles of chalk drawings. He perfected his method by inventing tools with toothed points of varying thicknesses set at irregular intervals and angles, imitating the random character of grains of chalk on textured paper. Gilles Demarteau adopted François's specialized implements to copy the chalk drawings of such well-known artists as Jean Baptiste le Prince and François Boucher.