Bacchanal, the Game of Leap Frog (c. 1785): Art, History and Details

Bacchanal, the Game of Leap Frog (c. 1785) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Laurent Guyot (French, 1756-); Jean Guillaume Moitte (French, 1746–1810).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Although Guyot’s print presents the same bacchanal as Gérard’s wax relief, the scene is flipped horizontally because the process of printing reverses the image. The differences between the two versions—apparent in the smoke, the foliage of the tree, and the belt of the central leaping man—suggest that both craftsmen may have worked directly from Moitte’s original design. Guyot’s use of aquatint, which produces areas of continuous tone with subtle variations in light and shade, makes the print seem more like a drawing than a sculpture. By printing on silk instead of paper, Guyot enhanced the sensuousness and luminosity of the scene in a manner different than Gérard’s use of colored wax.

Object facts

• Title: Bacchanal, the Game of Leap Frog
• Date: c. 1785
• Creator attribution: Laurent Guyot (French, 1756-); Jean Guillaume Moitte (French, 1746–1810)
• Culture: France
• Type: Print
• Technique: etching and aquatint on silk
• Dimensions: Image: 17 x 39.4 cm (6 11/16 x 15 1/2 in.); Mounted: 20.6 x 45.1 cm (8 1/8 x 17 3/4 in.)
• Collection: PR - Etching
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2008.18

A detail from the museum

Incense can refer to any material that, when burned, produces perfumed smoke. In the ancient world incense was often used a religious offering.

Collection credit

Gift of Friends of the Department of Prints and Drawings

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.