Blind Man's Bluff (1897): Art, History and Details

Blind Man's Bluff (1897) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Alexandre Lunois (French, 1863–1916); Auguste Clot (French, 1858–1936).

The work and its context

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

This print depicts a group of women enjoying blind man's bluff, a children's game in which one player is blindfolded and spun around before attempting to locate their companions by listening for their voices. The group gathers in a landscaped park, one of numerous sites for public leisure available to Parisians during the late 19th century. Lunois used vivid tones, such as green and yellow, to evoke the brightness of natural light. He relied upon his expertise in color lithography, a medium previously used for commercial printing, such as posters and booklets, that grew in popularity among artists during the 1890s.

Object facts

• Title: Blind Man's Bluff
• Date: 1897
• Creator attribution: Alexandre Lunois (French, 1863–1916); Auguste Clot (French, 1858–1936)
• Culture: France
• Type: Print
• Technique: color lithograph
• Collection: Prints
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2016.218

A detail from the museum

Alexandre Lunois began his career as a printmaker copying the works of other artists, but began to make his own original lithographs using his professional training around the time this work was made.

Collection credit

Bequest of Elizabeth Carroll Shearer

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.