Half Lunette with Putto and Monster 1745 - 1793

Etienne de Lavallée-Poussin made this pen and brown ink drawing, "Half Lunette with Putto and Monster," likely in France, sometime in the 1770s. Lunettes, the semicircular space above a door or window, often contained painted or sculpted decoration. Here, a winged infant, or putto, embraces a fearsome monster atop a sphere. This imagery draws on a long history of allegorical representation, where mythical creatures and human forms embody abstract concepts. In eighteenth-century France, such imagery served to reinforce social hierarchies and cultural values. Lavallée-Poussin’s drawing is of particular interest when considering academic institutions and their role in defining artistic taste. As a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, the artist operated within a system that valued classical ideals and promoted a specific visual language. To understand this work more fully, we might explore period treatises on ornament, architectural drawings, and the history of the Academy itself. Doing so reveals how art is never simply a matter of individual expression, but is always shaped by its social and institutional context.