The Spring

William Trost Richards

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This beautifully fashioned composition, possibly based on scenery in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, is part of a group of such works in pencil or charcoal that Richards executed in the early 1860s. Some were made as designs for his paintings of woodland interiors made during the Civil War years, others were done as independent drawings or possibly for display in his studio as advertisements for commissions. In 1863, the year this drawing was made, Richards was elected a member of the Society for the Advancement of Truth in Art, which comprised the American followers of John Ruskin. The exceptional dexterity and tonal range in this drawing presages the remarkable craftsmanship Richards brought to watercolor in the 1870s.

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