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View at the museum ↗Drawing: Expressions of Emotion (Wonder, Love, Veneration, Rapture), from Encyclopédie
A. J. Defehrt1762/77
- Attribution
- A. J. Defehrt (French, active 18th century) after Charles le Brun (French, active 17th century-1765) published by André le Breton (French, 1708-1779), Michel-Antoine David (French, c. 1707-1769), Laurent Durand (French, 1712-1763), and Antoine-Claude Briasson (French, 1700-1775)
- Medium
- Etching with engraving on cream laid paper
- Physical dimensions
- Image: 31.5 × 20.6 cm (12 7/16 × 8 1/8 in.); Plate: 35 × 22.5 cm (13 13/16 × 8 7/8 in.); Sheet: 40 × 26 cm (15 3/4 × 10 1/4 in.)
- Credit line
- The Art Institute of Chicago
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
The French Academy president Charles Le Brun’s famous lecture on the subject of facial expressions likely took place in two sessions, on April 7 and May 5, 1668. He assimilated many textual sources, including Descartes, but it was the series of drawings he produced to illustrate the different expressions that had the most impact. These images were copied incessantly, but some difficulty remains in identifying them, especially for a modern audience. This sheet from the 1777 Encyclopédie uses Le Brun’s images of the stages of love from astonishment to rapture.
Description: Art Institute of Chicago · CC BY 4.0