Cleveland Museum of Art

Bacchanal, the Game of Leap Frog

Laurent Guyot

Date

c. 1785

Medium

etching and aquatint on silk

Culture

France, 18th century

Department

Prints

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Although Guyot’s print presents the same bacchanal as Gérard’s wax relief, the scene is flipped horizontally because the process of printing reverses the image. The differences between the two versions—apparent in the smoke, the foliage of the tree, and the belt of the central leaping man—suggest that both craftsmen may have worked directly from Moitte’s original design. Guyot’s use of aquatint, which produces areas of continuous tone with subtle variations in light and shade, makes the print seem more like a drawing than a sculpture. By printing on silk instead of paper, Guyot enhanced the sensuousness and luminosity of the scene in a manner different than Gérard’s use of colored wax. Incense can refer to any material that, when burned, produces perfumed smoke. In the ancient world incense was often used a religious offering.

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