Portrait of the Painter

Portrait of the Painter

John La Farge

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This self-portrait, which La Farge painted in October 1859 at his family's estate in Glen Cove, Long Island, reflects his use of a photograph as a pictorial source; his appreciation of the unmodulated shapes and flattened space of Japanese prints; his reliance on broad tonal masses in the manner of his teachers, Thomas Couture and William Morris Hunt; and his experiments in plein-air landscape painting. The artist portrays himself as a landscapist ready to embark on a painting expedition.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.