Dancers with Flute and Tambourine

About this work

Jacques Callot’s etching shows dancers in motion, flute and tambourine in hand. Their clothes look stiff but bodies sway. The artist carved this on thin paper, not canvas. Callot worked fast. He used a needle to scratch lines right into metal plates. That’s etching—ink fills the grooves, then the paper soaks it up like a sponge. His lines are sharp but light. Look at how the tambourine’s frame almost glows. Find more like this at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.