A Corner of the Forest of Fontainebleau (Un coin de la Foret de Fontainebleau)

This etching by Charles Émile Jacque has the intimacy of a drawing, featuring loose, gestural lines and a small scale. While Jacque usually depicted animals, in this scene he concentrates on the shadows and textures of the Fontainebleau forest itself. A single cow in the left corner alludes to the artist’s typical subject matter.

Jacque was one of the most important proponents of the Etching Revival, an artistic movement that occurred in France, Britain, and America during the late 19th century. Though etching had been popular among artists during the 17th century, by Jacque’s time it was primarily used as a means of inexpensively reproducing famous paintings. Artists and critics alike sought to reestablish etching as a medium worthy of creative, spontaneous expression by underscoring its similarities with drawing, qualities that are evident in Jacque’s work.