Art, literature & history
The Evening Prayer
1790
- Dating
- Exact year
- Held at
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Medium
- Opaque watercolor, over traces of black chalk, on cream laid paper, laid down on card
- Dimensions
- Primary support: 28.8 × 38.6 cm (11 3/8 × 15 1/4 in.); Secondary support: 29.5 × 38.9 cm (11 5/8 × 15 3/8 in.)
- Collection no.
- 2015.357
- Attribution
- By the artist
- Image rights
- CC0 1.0License details
Jean-Baptiste Mallet. The Evening Prayer. Art Institute of Chicago. CC0 1.0. Compressed full-frame reproduction.
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
About this artwork
The Evening Prayer — Jean-Baptiste Mallet. 1790.
Medium: Opaque watercolor, over traces of black chalk, on cream laid paper, laid down on card. Dimensions: Primary support: 28.8 × 38.6 cm (11 3/8 × 15 1/4 in.); Secondary support: 29.5 × 38.9 cm (11 5/8 × 15 3/8 in.).
Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.
Jean-Baptiste Mallet was a painter and printmaker who specialized in small, elegant gouaches (opaque watercolors) of enigmatic subjects, such as this. Arranged like an implausible stage set, a monk-like character and an old man wearing a Phrygian cap appear to reprimand a largely female family who must have fallen on tough times, given that their handsome carpet and ornamental birdcage decorate a rusticated farm building.
Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.
Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.
Location checked Sep 10, 2026. This does not indicate whether the work is on display.