Jules Monnerot

Jules Monnerot, drawn in pencil in 1852, documents Chassériau's practice as a draftsman in the year before his death — a practice rooted in his early training under Ingres, who was above all a master of the drawn line. Monnerot was connected to Martinique, reflecting the Caribbean associations in Chassériau's own biography — his father was French consul in Santa Domingo and the artist was born in the Dominican Republic in 1819. The pencil drawing medium occupies a different register from Chassériau's painted works: it reveals the classical foundation of his line, the Ingres-derived discipline that underpinned even his most coloristically Romantic paintings. The Brooklyn Museum's holding places this work in an American institution with significant French nineteenth-century holdings. Pencil portraits by Chassériau are among his most intimate works, continuing the tradition of the portrait dessiné that Ingres had made fashionable and that Chassériau practiced throughout his career for friends, patrons, and sitters.

The pencil medium allows for a purity of line that reveals Chassériau's Ingresque training most directly: the contour is everything, and the modulation of pressure — from hair-thin to slightly heavier outlines — creates volume without recourse to color. The handling of the face demonstrates the discipline that distinguishes a great draftsman from a competent one.