Francis William Edmonds

Asher Brown Durand

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Edmonds, a prominent businessman, leading participant in the cultural institutions of New York, amateur painter and National Academician traveled to Europe in 1841, joining Durand in Rome. Although this drawing is quite similar to the artist’s oil portrait of Edmonds painted earlier in their European tour, here the sitter appears more introspective. Edmonds’s inward expression is emphasized by the contrast between Durand’s finely nuanced rendering of the sitter’s heavy facial features and his summary indication of the rest of the figure. Durand’s decision to draw the portrait may have been prompted by his desire to record Edmonds’s changed physical appearance (the thick mustache and sideburns do not appear in the oil portrait painted a few months before) and as a remembrance of their association while abroad.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art