Gezicht op een brug in een rotsachtig landschap after 1759

This is Jeanne Deny’s etching ‘View of a Bridge in a Rocky Landscape’. Deny made this work during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a period defined by the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Deny's work fits within the picturesque movement, a reaction against the formal gardens of the aristocracy and which favored natural landscapes. Within these landscapes, there were hierarchies: the sublime and beautiful, but also the picturesque, which found beauty in the imperfect. Yet, who had access to these landscapes, and who was excluded? How do the figures in the landscape – dwarfed by the scale of nature – engage with the space? Deny gained entry to the Académie de Saint-Luc in 1764, and this print illustrates how women artists navigated the art world, depicting landscapes that speak to both artistic conventions and personal expression. The etching invites us to contemplate not just the scene, but also the historical context and the artist’s position within it.