The schoolmistress

Bosse was the most important follower of Jacques Callot. He also wrote the first manual on etching which goes so far as to say that the main aim of etching is to imitate engraving. Bosse's closely observed interiors give a vivid view of the life of the Parisian upper-middle class at the time of Louis XIII. In this print an elderly and bespectacled schoolmistress instructs a girl in reading, while, at the back of the schoolroom two girls eat a lunch of bread and fruit that they have brought with them in their baskets.