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View at the museum ↗Omer Talon
Claude Mellan1645/52
- Attribution
- Claude Mellan French, 1598-1688
- Medium
- Engraving on paper
- Physical 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
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Source rights statement: Public domain
View the museum record ↗From the museum
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.
Description: Art Institute of Chicago · CC BY 4.0