1637
ink
paper
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc is a 1637 ink by French 17th Century, a Baroque work, held at National Gallery of Art.
This is a black-and-white portrait of a bearded man with curly hair. He’s wearing a ruffled collar that sits high around his neck. The lines in the engraving create shadows that make his face look three-dimensional, especially around his eyes and beard. The tiny, repeating lines all over the paper are called cross-hatching. They’re what give the portrait its shading and texture. Next, check out technique: engraving.
Seventeenth-century French printmakers turned ink into story. Their tools were burin and acid, paper their stage. Look at the Beggar Woman with Rosary (1622), etched on laid paper, her hands folded around faith, or The…
See the richer artist pageYour cart is empty
Explore artworks →
