The Toilers of the Sea

Albert Pinkham Ryder

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ryder probably either selected or approved the title of this painting, which relates it to Victor Hugo’s famous 1866 novel of the same name (Les travailleurs de la mer, in the original French). The painting could illustrate any one of several scenes in that novel, which features a fisherman character whose personality and attitudes resemble Ryder’s own. The surface has changed and suffered over the years; still, as with most of Ryder’s works, the composition conveys the artist’s vision of the mystical relationship between people and nature.

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