A Seated Shepherdess

A Seated Shepherdess — Jules Dupré. c. 1836.

Medium: black chalk with white heightening and white pastel on brown paper laid down on board. Dimensions: Sheet: 61.1 x 47.6 cm (24 1/16 x 18 3/4 in.).

Collection record: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

Unique for Jules Dupré, who mostly recorded landscapes, this sheet features a woman holding a crook for herding sheep. Many middle-class collectors at the time were eager for images of rural life while cities grew and factories proliferated. Cleveland’s drawing forms a pair with a similar depiction of a male shepherd, also created using wetted and burnished white pastel on earthy brown paper. It is one of numerous objects in these galleries formerly owned by Clevelander Muriel Butkin, a passionate scholar and collector of French art from the 1800s who bequeathed nearly 300 drawings to the museum.

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.