Rêtif de la Bretonne: The Little Godparents

1777

Jean-Michel the Younger Moreau

(French, 1741–1814)

Culture

France, 18th century

Medium

etching and engraving

Credit Line

Anne Elizabeth Wilson Memorial Fund 1980.51

Catalogue raisonné

Bocher 1353

State

IV/VII

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Location

Not on view

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.