Profile portrait of a woman

Joseph Jean Bernard

1781 · Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, touches of blue wash, over black chalk · Drawings and Prints

Bernard was born in Luneville, in the duchy of Lorraine, in what is today eastern France. He became writing master to King Stanislas, the exiled king of Poland, who had established a court in Luneville. After Stanislas’s death in 1766, Bernard moved to Paris where he developed a style of portraiture that set the profiles of sitters in elaborate frames that merged calligraphic flourishes with naturalistic observation. In this portrait of an unidentified woman, the sitter is nearly eclipsed by the multiple ornamental frames.

Artist

Joseph Jean Bernard

Date

1781

Medium

Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, touches of blue wash, over black chalk

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Bequest of Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 2019