The Life Class of the Vienna Academy

Johann Jacobe|Martin Ferdinand Quadal

1790 · Mezzotint; proof · Drawings and Prints

Members of the Vienna Academy are represented sketching, painting, and sculpting from a live model. Quadal, who specialized in portraits and animal subjects, sits sketching in the right foreground. Jacobé taught mezzotint—an intaglio technique in which subtle gradations of light and shade form the image—at the Vienna Academy. Thanks to his professorship, Vienna produced the only significant school of mezzotint artists in the late eighteenth century outside of London. This impression is a proof, a step in the working process, and the names of the artists had yet to be engraved on the plate. They were added by hand in brown ink in the bottom margin.

Artist

Johann Jacobe|Martin Ferdinand Quadal

Date

1790

Medium

Mezzotint; proof

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 2003