The Pranksters (Les Espiègles) (c. 1798): Art, History and Details

The Pranksters (Les Espiègles) (c. 1798) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Charles-Melchior Descourtis (French, 1753–1820); Frédéric Schall (French, 1752–1825).

The work and its context

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

This meticulously crafted color print reproduces an oil painting by Jean-Frédéric Schall, an artist best known for his pastoral and mildly erotic scenes.During the French Revolution (1789–99), the market for deluxe color prints declined, as titillating subjects and signs of luxury were considered immoral. When attitudes relaxed around 1800, printmakers like Descourtis made a few color prints using multiple plates to layer tinted inks as they had before the Revolution. However, this time-consuming and expensive process was soon replaced by hand coloring that workers could more cheaply and easily accomplish.

Object facts

• Title: The Pranksters (Les Espiègles)
• Date: c. 1798
• Creator attribution: Charles-Melchior Descourtis (French, 1753–1820); Frédéric Schall (French, 1752–1825)
• Culture: France
• Type: Print
• Technique: Wash manner etching and engraving printed in blue, red, yellow, and black
• Dimensions: Sheet: 57 x 45 cm (22 7/16 x 17 11/16 in.); to borderline: 46.4 x 37.4 cm (18 1/4 x 14 3/4 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2015.150

Collection credit

Gift of the Print Club of Cleveland in honor of the museum's one-hundredth anniversary

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Exhibitions." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 56, no. 4 (July/August 2016): 4.

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.