The son of a Parisian stocking manufacturer, Bonnet trained with the engravers Louis-Claude LeGrand and Jean-Charles François, the latter the inventor of the chalk-manner technique of printmaking. Erroneously referred to as engravings, chalk-, crayon- or pastel-manner prints are actually etchings made with a metal wheel called a roulette with a random pattern of variously sized points that was rolled over a plate coated with a protective wax ground. When the plate was etched in acid, the resulting pattern of dots provided a passable approximation of the original chalk drawing.

Bonnet’s prints made in this way became immensely popular with collectors seeking images that imitated the subtle blend of colors epitomized by the drawings of Watteau, Boucher, and their contemporaries. During the late 1770s and ’80s, Bonnet’s success as a color printmaker was unrivaled; he counted among his patrons the wealthiest Parisian collectors of the time, and at his death he was able to leave behind a sizable estate despite the changing tastes brought on by the Revolution.

This portrait, once thought to be a likeness of Madame de Pompadour but now known as an image of Boucher’s seventeen-year-old daughter Marie-Emilie, is one of the greatest achievements in French eighteenth-century color printmaking.