Works on Paper

Jean-Baptiste Hüet (Paris 1745-1811 Paris)
The Good Mother
Pen in gray and black ink, gray ink wash
Signed and dated in gray ink upper left: J.B. huët 1787
132 x 132 mm

The sheet presented here, The Young Mother, depicting a baby crawling across a floor in the presence of three women, is executed in pen and ink in a looser more spontaneous style than that for which Hüet is usually known. The composition is almost identical to another drawing of the same subject done in pen and watercolor, signed and dated 1786. The 1786 drawing is more finished than the present sheet dated 1787.The reworking of the subject a year later demonstrates Hüet’s interest in domestic themes at this time.

Stylistically similar loosely drawn sheets in pen and ink by Hüet are known. They include the pendent Dîner and Souper also signed and dated 1787, Pastorale, and Le rêve accompli. Hüet has done other composition with a family and intimist atmosphere like the pendant Les Présents du Jour de l’An and Les compliments du Jour de l’An.

Painter and engraver, Jean-Baptiste Hüet was trained by his father, Nicholas Hüet, and later apprenticed to the animal painter Charles Dagomer. Around 1764, Hüet entered the studio of Jean-Baptise Le Prince. The two most important influences on Hüet’s art were Francois Boucher, who had taught Le Prince, and the animal painter Jean-Baptiste Oudry. From these masters Hüet developed his favorite subject matter, pastorals, and animal studies. In 1768, he was approved at the Academie Royale with his painting Dog Attacking Geese (Paris, Louvre), and in 1769 he was received as an academician with his painting Fox in the Chicken-run (San Francisco, CA Pal. Legion of Honor). He first exhibited pictures at the Paris Salon in 1769. Hüet succeded in his animal, pastoral and genre paintings that were widely admired and thus engraved. Many of his drawings were also reproduced with aquatint and etching by Demarteau, Lebas, and Bonnet.