Dominique Vivant DenonFrench, 1747–1825Standing Putto
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Standing Putto” now? Collection: Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Cambridge, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
Dominique Denon, who, as was demonstrated in an exhibition, "Prints from the Serenissima: Connoisseurship and the Graphic Arts in Eighteenth-Century Venice" (Harvard Art Museum/Fogg Museum, 23 November 2002 - 9 March 2003), was an innovative and influential printmaker. This impression exemplifies his experimentation well. Its somewhat trite subject -- a standing putto copied from a Guido Reni drawing -- is merely the vehicle for experimentation in technique, medium, and support. Denon has used etching and roulette, conventional enough for the 18th century, but he extended the tonal potential of roulette to create vapous veils of pale tone, perhaps by the direct application of acid to the plate.
Read on
For this impression he selected an astonishing shade of blue ink, suggestive of Prussian blue, a synthetic pigment invented only a few decades earlier which had come into great fashion but which is as far as possible from the gray or brown washes that would have characterized the Reni original. Finally, as a further distinction to this impression, Denon selected a soft grayish-white Chinese paper. According to Darius Spieth, organizer of the aforementioned exhibition, whose PhD dissertation catalogues the prints of Denon, this is entirely in character for the artist.
Harvard Art Museums
Details
- Accession number
- 2008.110
In the catalog
Sources
- Harvard Art Museums
- Image: Harvard Art Museums — © President and Fellows of Harvard College
