The Rajah Starting on a Hunt

The Rajah Starting on a Hunt

Edwin Lord Weeks

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Boston-born and Paris-trained, Edwin Lord Weeks was a leading expatriate painter, illustrator, photographer, writer, explorer, and collector as well as the first known American artist to visit India. This painting depicts preparations for a hunting expedition at a palace in Ajmer, Rajasthan. Likely dating from the artist’s 1892-93 trip to the country, he described the palace façade in his published accounts as "completely covered by tiers of projecting windows . . . wonderfully light and airy in effect." The striking period frame is not original to the painting, but suggests the "Orientalist"-style setting that Weeks favored for his work.

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.