Le Retour de l'Eglise. Return from the Church

Genre painting came back into favour when the Academy admitted Watteau's "The Pilgrimage to Cythera" to its ranks in 1717. From that point on, a fashion for decorative genre subjects swept the country, influencing an entire generation of French artists. This stunning print is a wonderful example of French pastoral painting at this period as well as a superb example of French color printing. Early color printing was developed as a means of reproducing the effects of painting in oils. This spectacular print exemplifies the single-plate color printing technique used in England, then adopted in France, at the close of the eighteenth century. The effect is achieved by inking a single plate with several different colors by using a rag stump, this process is known as a la poupée. The combination of color printing and hand-coloring adds to vivacious character of the image, the happy dance-like promenade from the wedding to the celebration.