Rêtif de la Bretonne:  The Little Godparents

Description

Moreau was a printmaker and book illustrator, known best for his ability to depict fashion, poses, and gestures. Published in Monument du costume physique et morale, a suite of prints portraying the manners and dress of fashionable society at the end of the 1700s, this scene is part of a sequence narrating the pregnancy and birth of a young couple’s first son. Here, a superbly dressed boy and girl exit a mansion toward a waiting coach; behind them, a wet nurse carries their godson, whose gesturing father stands to the side with two footmen.

Provenance

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Rêtif de la Bretonne: The Little Godparents

Jean-Michel the Younger Moreau

1777

Accession Number

1980.51

Medium

etching and engraving

Dimensions

N/A

Classification

Print

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

Anne Elizabeth Wilson Memorial Fund