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A Seated Shepherdess
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
Unique for Jules Dupré, who mostly recorded landscapes, this sheet features a woman holding a crook for herding sheep. Many middle-class collectors at the time were eager for images of rural life while cities grew and factories proliferated. Cleveland’s drawing forms a pair with a similar depiction of a male shepherd, also created using wetted and burnished white pastel on earthy brown paper. It is one of numerous objects in these galleries formerly owned by Clevelander Muriel Butkin, a passionate scholar and collector of French art from the 1800s who bequeathed nearly 300 drawings to the museum.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineA Seated Shepherdess, c. 1836. Jules Dupré (French, 1811–1889). Black chalk with white heightening and white pastel on brown paper laid down on board; sheet: 61.1 x 47.6 cm (24 1/16 x 18 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Muriel Butkin, 2009.314
