L'enfant qui joue avec l'Amour 1769 - 1770

J.F. Clemens created this engraving titled ‘The child who plays with Love,’ sometime around the late 18th century. In it, we see two chubby children, one restraining the other who is clutching a dove. The image speaks to the period’s fascination with childhood and innocence, a theme popularized by Enlightenment philosophers like Rousseau. These themes coincided with changing social attitudes toward education and child-rearing. But rather than offering a straightforward sentimental image, the struggle between the figures suggests that the path of love is difficult. This print was made in France, where the institutions of the Old Regime supported the arts. Access to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture was highly selective, and artists often depended on wealthy patrons for commissions. Prints like this one provided a way to disseminate imagery to a broader audience, thereby challenging the institutions that shaped French art. By studying the prints and publications of the period, and by analyzing the patronage networks that sustained artists like Clemens, we can better understand the complex social and political forces that shaped artistic production in 18th-century France.