Admired for his impromptu sketches of daily life in Paris, Saint-Aubin produced one of the liveliest and most insightful records of ancien-régime France. This charming vignette captures an elegant young woman, accompanied by a small boy and a dog, as she lifts the hem of her skirt and prepares to ascend a curving stone stair to a sunlit park.
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Artwork Details
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Title:L'Escalier (The Curving Stair)
Artist:Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (French, Paris 1724–1780 Paris)
Date:1778–79
Medium:Black chalk, pen and black and brown ink, watercolor, and touches of gouache, on off-white laid paper
Dimensions:Sheet: 7 3/8 x 4 7/8 in. (18.7 x 12.4 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:Gift of Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 2004
Accession Number:2004.475.5
Signature: Signed and dated in pen and gray ink at lower right: 1778 [partially obscured]/ G dSA / 1779.
Inscription: Illegible graphite inscription at upper left.
Marking: Possibly the mark of E. Calando (Lugt 837), partially visible at lower left.
Emile Calando (French), Paris (Lugt 837), until his death, 1899, his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, December 11-12, 1899, lot 201.; his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, December 11-12, 1899, lot 201, December 19, 1919, lot 12.; sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, December 19, 1919, lot 12; Richard Owen, Paris; John Nicholas Brown, 1927-79;on loan to the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, March 13 - November 2, 1929.; on loan to the Fogg Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Mass., March 13-November 2, 1929; on wartime loan to the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, January 5, 1941-November 11, 1944, on wartime "Duration" loan from January 5, 1941 - November 11, 1944 (while still in the collection of John Nicholas Brown); John Nicholas Brownestate, 1979-86; David Tunick, Inc., New York, 1986; sold to Wrightsman; Mrs. Charles Wrightsman (American), New York, from 1986; her gift in 2004 to The Metropolitan Museum of Art (American)
Galerie Charpentier, Paris. "Exposition des Saint-Aubin," April 7, 1925–April 29, 1925.
Fogg Museum, Harvard Art Museums. "Drawings from the Collection of John Nicholas Brown," 1962.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," January 24–April 24, 2005.
Dacier 471
Emile Dacier, Edouard Girod de l'Ain Exposition des Saint-Aubin. Paris, 1925, cat. no. 80, 66.
Emile Dacier Gabriel de Saint-Aubin: Peintre, dessinateur et graveur (1724-1780). 2 vols., Paris and Brussels, 1929-1931, vol. 2, p. 77, no. 471.
Emily Rauh Drawings from the Collection of John Nicholas Brown. Exh. cat. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1962, cat. no. 31.
Everett Fahy, Pierre Rosenberg, Elizabeth E. Barker, George R. Goldner et al. The Wrightsman Pictures. New York and New Haven, 2005, cat. no. 58, ill.
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The Met's collection of drawings and prints—one of the most comprehensive and distinguished of its kind in the world—began with a gift of 670 works from Cornelius Vanderbilt, a Museum trustee, in 1880.
