Idée du tableau le plus touchant du Salon de l’an 9 (La Pauvre rentière)

Chevalier Férréol de Bonnemaison|Anonymous, French, 19th century

ca. 1800 · Etching and aquatint · Drawings and Prints

This print records a painting by Ferréol de Bonnemaison exhibited in Paris at the Salon of 1800. The title was listed simply as "Étude d’après nature" (study after nature), but the scene was described in the catalogue as "an old woman and her grandson, after having lost their fortune, and then their friends, finding themselves unable to earn a living, are constrained to implore passers-by for pity." Ripped posters on the wall behind them advertising a concert and a masked ball allude to loss and gayer times. The subject reflects an unsettled period of French history in the years after the French revolution and during the early rise of Napoleon. The artist is asking for the viewer’s pity for members of the wealthy classes who saw their fortune and their place in society dramatically reduced.

Artist

Chevalier Férréol de Bonnemaison|Anonymous, French, 19th century

Date

ca. 1800

Medium

Etching and aquatint

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Bequest of James David Draper and the Robert Isaacson Collection, 2020