François Bonvin (1817–1887)
Servant Knitting, 1861
Charcoal and black chalk with stumping and erasing on beige laid paper
15 11/16 x 12 5/16 in. (39.8 x 31.3 cm)
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 2012.12
A woman in a humble interior concentrates on her knitting. Bonvin’s precise handling of chalk and charcoal captures the play of light and shadow on her face and pristine white apron. Emulating seventeenth-century Dutch genre paintings, Bonvin produced many such scenes of daily life to great acclaim.