Le Poule et ses Poussins 1855 - 1865

Editor: Looking at Charles-François Daubigny’s print, "La Poule et ses Poussins" made between 1855 and 1865, it strikes me as quite humble, almost like a study of everyday rural life. What can you tell me about it? Curator: Daubigny’s etching offers more than a simple rural scene; it's a document of artistic labor. Notice how the meticulous etching process, with its network of lines, transforms the mundane – a hen and her chicks – into a commodity. Think about the printmaking process itself. It’s reproductive. Multiple impressions mean wider distribution, taking art beyond the elite salon and potentially into the homes of the burgeoning middle class. How does this mass production affect our perception of "high art"? Editor: So, you are saying its value comes from its role as an early form of accessible art, and maybe about blurring the line between craft and art? Curator: Precisely. Daubigny's choice of subject matter, the farmyard fowl, and his method, etching, challenge academic hierarchies. Where’s the grand narrative, the history painting? Here, we see an engagement with the tangible, the material conditions of rural existence, reproduced and consumed. What social commentary might be embedded within this unassuming image? Consider the consumption of these images—who could afford them, and what did owning a piece like this signify? Editor: I never considered the layers of meaning baked into something so simple! Now I'm thinking about who the audience was, the social implications, and how it challenges traditional art. Curator: Exactly. Thinking about the 'how' and 'why' of production expands our understanding. We see that “art” isn’t separate from the social and material world but deeply intertwined with labor, consumption, and cultural value.