The Potato Peeler (1893): Art, History and Details

The Potato Peeler (1893) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Ker Xavier Roussel (French, 1867–1944); Edward Ancourt (French, 1841–1898?).

The work and its context

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

This print presents the type of domestic scene that Ker-Xavier Roussel and his Nabi colleagues favored during the 1890s. Artists in this circle used simplified forms and bold color to depict subject matter drawn from contemporary Paris, both domestic and public. Created in the year that Roussel married Marie, the sister of his close friend Édouard Vuillard, this lithograph may be a portrait of his new wife. The figure appears fully absorbed in her task, but also completely isolated from the outside world in starkly contrasting light and dark tones.

Object facts

• Title: The Potato Peeler
• Date: 1893
• Creator attribution: Ker Xavier Roussel (French, 1867–1944); Edward Ancourt (French, 1841–1898?)
• Culture: France
• Type: Print
• Technique: lithograph on gray laid paper
• Dimensions: Image: 19.1 x 15.6 cm (7 1/2 x 6 1/8 in.)
• Collection: PR - Lithograph
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2024.57

A detail from the museum

This print is the first of several in which Ker-Xavier Roussel collaborated with renowned master printmaker Edward Ancourt.

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

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.