2-730-798 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Head of a Woman (Mme. Deshayes?), c. 1771. To produce this print, Bonnet used three different printing plates to layer black ink, then semitransparent blue ink, and finally a thicker red pigment onto white paper. After the first run through the press, Bonnet had to carefully align each subsequent plate to achieve the desired colouration. Although the identity of this young woman is unknown, she may be Boucher’s daughter, Jean-Elisabeth Victoire, who married Jean-Baptiste Henri Deshays, a pupil of Boucher.