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Study of a Draped Woman Leaning on a Pedestal

A work made of black chalk, with stumping, and white chalk on buff laid paper, laid down onto thick modern laid paperboard.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of black chalk, with stumping, and white chalk on buff laid paper, laid down onto thick modern laid paperboard.

Date:

1759/61

Artist:

François Boucher
French, 1703–1770

About this artwork

In this powerful drawing, François Boucher’s model is so enveloped in yards of voluminous cloth that the fabric itself becomes the work’s subject and the drawing functions as an exercise in near abstraction. Boucher manipulated the black chalk to create outline and shadows, the white chalk to produce shimmering highlights, and the buff-colored paper to suggest flesh and give the fabric color and volume, in the process producing one of the finest drawings of 18th-century France.

The sheet may have served as the model for Cleopatra in the artist’s etched frontispiece opening an edition of Pierre Corneille’s tragedy Rodogune, Princess of Parthia.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

François Boucher

Title

Study of a Draped Woman Leaning on a Pedestal

Place

France (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1759–1761

Medium

Black chalk, with stumping, and white chalk on buff laid paper, laid down onto thick modern laid paperboard

Inscriptions

Inscription, verso, l.l.: "74"

Dimensions

Primary support: 52.3 × 36 cm (20 5/8 × 14 3/16 in.); Secondary support: 54.5 × 38.7 cm (21 1/2 × 15 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray

Reference Number

2019.835

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/244908/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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