James Tissot (French, 1836-1902)
Marie Lescadieu's post
James Tissot (French, 1836-1902)
The Gallery of H.M.S. Calcutta (Souvenir of a Ball on Shipboard), 1876
Drypoint on off-white wove paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
By the late nineteenth century, travel was an integral component of society life for both men and women. It was also an opportunity for displays of lavish wealth, and James-Jacques-Joseph Tissot’s print, relating to a painting of the same title, and the second in his set of three “social conversation pictures,” illustrates this trend. Treated in a light operatic manner, this romantic triangle, composed of two women and a gentleman, takes place on a ship deck set against the background of a grand harbor. His protagonists’ psychological states are revealed not only in their facial expressions, which suggest highly controlled competition, but also in their unbalanced positions, which make their emotional drama palpable.
In genre portraits of fashionable, high-society women in the late 1800s, James Jacques-Joseph Tissot captured the charmed elegance of his social world by documenting the costumes, decor, and events of the elite. A painter, printmaker, and enamelist, Tissot was a student of Hippolyte Flandrin and Louis Lamothe at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but later relocated to Londonondon after fighting in the Franco-Prussian war, where a caricature gig at Vanity Fair granted him entry to the elite society that would ultimately define his subject matter. Upon meeting his wife and muse Kathleen Newton, Tissot drastically altered his lifestyle and subject matter to trade his social life for domesticity, and upon her death, a heartbroken Tissot returned to Paris with a subsequent interest in religion and spirituality that was reflected in his work thereafter.
The image is a print titled The Gallery of H.M.S. Calcutta (Souvenir of a Ball on Shipboard), created in 1876 by the French artist James Tissot.
- The artwork is an etching and drypoint print based on a painting of the same name.
- It depicts fashionable, high-society women and a gentleman at a shipboard gala in Portsmouth, England.
- Tissot was well-known for genre paintings of fashionably dressed women and often explored themes like love triangles and the subtle dynamics of flirtation in his work.
- The print is currently held in the collection of institutions such
