Portret van mejuffrouw Sauvage als Babichon 1733 - 1797

Pierre François Basan made this print, "Portret van mejuffrouw Sauvage als Babichon" or "Portrait of Miss Sauvage as Babichon," with etching. It uses an allegorical style common in France at the time. Here, Miss Sauvage is seen as a "Babichon," a stock character who is an innocent country girl. The young lady is dressed plainly, and stands in front of a rural background that includes a windmill. The print plays with the social norms of the era by dressing up the sitter in a costume to create an idealised character. In understanding this print, we need to look at the way art and theater operated in the 1700s. Prints like this one circulated widely and were affordable and there would have been theaters, playhouses, popular songs that depicted the Babichon stock character. These are the kinds of sources that an art historian might look at in order to get a better sense of the image’s meaning.