Frédérique Follows Her Husband, Illustration for Frédérique

1906

This drawing is one of sixteen by the artist commissioned to illustrate Charles Paul de Kock’s 1907 novel Frédérique, a tale of love and adultery in Parisian society. In this image, Frédérique, disguised in men’s clothing, pursues her husband on his evening outing to confirm his extramarital escapades. Everett Shinn juxtaposed a precise rendering of the protagonist in the foreground with loose, rapid strokes of crayon in the architecture and pavement to heighten the mystery and gloominess of this nighttime scene.