L'Optique (The Optical Viewer)

Frédéric Cazenave after Louis-Léopold Boilly

National Gallery of Art

A woman and young boy stand in front of a square table set with papers and a looking device in this vertical, colored etched print. The boy and woman stand angled to our left at the center of the composition, and both have pale, nearly white-colored skin with wide-set eyes and delicate noses. Both smile with bow-shaped lips. The woman turns her face to look at us. Long blond hair is partially arranged in bands of curls under her forest-green hat, which has elaborate bows. The ultramarine-blue bodice of her dress fits tightly on the long sleeves and to the narrow waist. White fabric is gathered and tucked into the puffy neckline. Her pearl-white skirt flares out at the waist and falls in deep, crinkling folds to the ground. The woman reaches across the boy to hold the corner of one sheet of paper in the stack on the table. The boy has shaggy, dark brown hair, and he looks at the device. He wears a copper-orange jacket over a ruffled white shirt and blue pants. The hand we see rests on the edge of the velvety, terracotta-brown cloth covering the table. The wooden device is on a stand with turned knobs like a candlestick. A vertically oriented rectangular panel frames a round, blue-shaded window. A second panel hinges from the top edge of the first to angle up and to our left, presumably reflecting or mirroring images on the papers below. A brass and white stone candlestick and a glass cup sit on a brown stone mantle behind the table to our left. Those objects and the paneling of the room behind us are reflected in a mirror over the mantle. A chair upholstered with copper brown and with white trim stands behind the woman’s legs, and a stringed, guitar-like instrument leans against one arm of the chair. A teal-green curtain hangs from the top right corner of the sheet to drape across the back of the chair and partially cover a high wooden chest. An open book, a closed book, papers, and a white urn are arranged against the fawn-brown wall atop the chest. The floor is peanut brown.