Accession Number2005/2.33
TitleMatinee de printemps
Artist(s)James Jacques Joseph TissotArtist NationalityFrench (culture or style)Object Creation Date1875Medium & Supportdrypoint on paperDimensions 19 15/16 in x 10 15/16 in (50.64 cm x 27.78 cm);22 11/16 in x 15 3/16 in (57.63 cm x 38.58 cm)
Credit LineGift of Dr. and Mrs. Robert AldrichSubject matterThis genre scene, or image of everyday life, centers on the depiction of a fashoinable bourgeois woman caught during a sudden shift in the pleasant spring morning weather.
The image can be placed within a long visual tradition of deocrative allegorical images in which women are used to represent the four seasons. In a related allegorical reading, contemporaries might have seen the change in the weather depicted in the print as analogous to the supposed quickness with which women's moods were thought to shift.
Physical DescriptionA woman in an elaborate striped dress stands in an outdoor landscape, shading her eyes with her right hand and looking directly out at the viewer. She holds a white umbrella that dramatically frames her head (capped by a white hat) against the dark sky in the upper background of the composition. A contrasting white area of ground beneath the black sky leads into the foreground, where the woman stands at the edge of a pond surrounded by reeds and a large stalked plant.
Signed in the image, lower left, in the plate: "J.J. Tissot / 1875"
Primary Object Classification Print Primary Object Typeintaglio printCollection AreaWesternRightsIf you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit
http://umma.umich.edu/request-image for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.
Keywords
cattail (material)
costume (mode of fashion)
drypoint (printing process)
etching (printing process)
gardens (open spaces)
genre (visual works)
hats
original prints
parasols (costume accessories)
ponds (water)
reed (plant)
seasons
storms
sunlight
umbrellas
women (female humans)