1784
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Dominant colour
Young Man Seated, Smoking is a 1784 ink by Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki, a Romanticism work, held at National Gallery of Art.
This black-and-white drawing shows a man sitting in a chair, smoking a pipe. He’s dressed in loose clothes, one leg crossed over the other, and he leans back like he’s relaxed. A small table beside him holds a tall, narrow object—maybe a glass or a candle—and the room behind him looks plain, with a curtain or heavy fabric on the wall. The artist used fine lines to show the folds in his clothes and the texture of the chair. The whole scene feels quiet and thoughtful, not busy. This kind of drawing was made using a technique that lets artists scratch into metal plates to create detailed lines. Next, look up etching to see how artists like this made their marks.
Daniel Niklaus Chodowiecki (16 October 1726 – 7 February 1801) was a German painter and printmaker of Huguenot and Polish ancestry, who is most famous as an etcher.
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