Artwork Information

  • Title:

    Miseries and Misfortunes of War, The; Frontispiece

  • Artist:

    Callot, Jacques

  • Artist Bio:

    French, 1592–1635

  • Date:

    1633

  • Medium:

    Etching

  • Dimensions:

    3 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches

  • Credit Line:

    Wichita Art Museum, L. S. and Ida L. Naftzger Collection of Prints

  • Object Number:

    1943.29

  • Display:

    Not Currently on Display


About the Artwork

War was a daily commonplace for Callot and the men of his time. Out of the whole of the 17th century there were only seven complete years in which there was not war between European states. Just two years before Callot’s death the duchy of Lorraine, whose court employed the artist and where he spent much of his life, was invaded by France.

Callot’s most famous and influential print series, The Miseries of War was published in 1633. Instead of glorifying war in the conventional manner with panoramic battle scenes, the artist chose to depict the unheroic background conflict of occupying soldiers and civilians. This collusion was particularly bitter in Callot’s time due to the fact that the majority of soldiers engaged in any war were not citizen recruits but career mercenaries.