Omer Talon

Prints and Drawings

1645/52

Claude Mellan
French, 1598-1688

Omer Talon was the attorney general to the Parisian Parliament at the beginning of the Fronde, a period of civil war in France, known for opposing a major tax proposed by Louis XIV’s mother, Anne of Austria. With his singular style of engraving, Claude Mellan employed parallel lines, rather than cross-hatching, to create shading. This technique is visible on Talon’s cap, where Mellan thickened and darkened portions of the lines around its center to suggest a dark fabric lit from above. Since this style leaves more of the paper untouched by ink, Mellan’s engravings are often lighter than works by his contemporaries.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Claude Mellan
Title: Omer Talon
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.: 1645–1652
Medium: Engraving on paper
Dimensions: Plate: 27.4 × 19.7 cm (10 13/16 × 7 13/16 in.); Sheet: 31.5 × 23.4 cm (12 7/16 × 9 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Mrs. Morris Woolf
Reference Number: 1941.449
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/41711/manifest.json

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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.

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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.

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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.