Minneapolis Institute of Art

Woman Seated in an Armchair

Pierre-Georges Jeanniot

Date

c. 1900

Medium

Black and white chalk with gray and brown wash on blue paper

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

This alert, fashionably dressed woman is the archetype of the Belle Époque Parisienne—a woman able to enjoy middle-class leisure in Paris when it seemed to be the capital of the world, a place of limitless possibility. Though she looks at her surroundings, she is equally aware of being seen. Pierre-Georges Jeanniot traded in his military career for the life of an artist in Paris. When he achieved success, he settled down to study, sometimes with a jaundiced eye, the life of the middle class in the metropolis. Though capable as a painter, his true calling was as a draftsman. He contributed illustrations for serious literature, cartoons, and sketches for popular magazines, and made independent drawings such as this one. One can readily imagine this drawing in the boudoir or parlor of a woman of the type depicted, a mirror of how the purchaser would like to be seen. France, Europe

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