In accord with the taste of post-revolutionary Paris, Drolling le Père made his name with bourgeois genres scenes, mostly small interiors and graceful episodes from everyday life. Numerous copperplates and lithographs reproduced these popular compo- sitions.
A comparison of the seated boy in this drawing with a portrait of the artist’s son Michel-Martin (1786-1851) allows the sheet to be dated close to 1795.1 Other details recur in Drolling’s most famous painting of a kitchen interior, which was purchased by the Louvre in the year of the painter’s death (Fig.1).
- Martin Drolling: Portrait of His Son as a Drummer,
oil on canvas, private collection