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The Public Scribe
Jean Jacques de Boissieu1790
- Attribution
- Jean Jacques de Boissieu (French, 1736-1810) after Jacob van Ruisdael (Dutch, 1628/29-1682)
- Medium
- Etching, drypoint, and roulette on ivory wove paper
- Physical dimensions
- Image: 25.8 × 38.4 cm (10 3/16 × 15 1/8 in.); Plate: 29.3 × 42.1 cm (11 9/16 × 16 5/8 in.); Sheet: 30 × 42.7 cm (11 13/16 × 16 13/16 in.)
- Credit line
- The Wallace L. DeWolf and Joseph Brooks Fair Collections
CATALOGUE RECORD
Museum metadata is available under CC0. Image availability and rights are separate; consult the source record.
Source rights statement: Public domain
View the museum record ↗From the museum
This large plate is characteristic of de Boissieu' s last period of printmaking, which was dominated by his interest in landscapes and scenes of daily life. The influence of seventeenth-century Dutch genre scenes is clear in this work, which depicts the predicament of a writer who must transcribe the message of a young couple although more interesting activities distract his attention. Boissieu used the roulette, a tool with a spiked wheel, to indent the plate and simulate the effects of an inked wash.
Description: Art Institute of Chicago · CC BY 4.0