Cleveland Museum of Art

Perseus

Nicolas-François Chifflart

Date

1865

Medium

etching

Culture

France

Department

Prints

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

François-Nicolas Chifflart was an important member of the etching revival in 19th-century France. This print, from his 1865 series Improvisations on Copper , reveals the freedom and experimentation that Chifflart found in this medium. He drew directly on prepared copper plates, sketching as he would on a sheet of paper, to create both anecdotal studies and imaginative finished compositions. Executed on an intimate scale, the prints encouraged close looking and private contemplation. The prints of series like François-Nicolas Chifflart’s Improvisations on Copper were often separated over time; complete sets like this one are rare today.

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