Sphinx in the Louvre

Henry Jackson Morton

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Until this drawing was gifted to the American Wing, the collection contained no work by Morton, an Anglican minister and antiquarian who spent most of his life in Philadelphia. Born in New York City and educated at Columbia University, Morton received no formal art training but became the only amateur member of The Sketch Club, whose members included Thomas Cole, Samuel Morse, and Francis W. Edmonds. Morton drew this picture of the Louvre Sphinx in association with drawings he executed for a University of Pennsylvania report on the translation of the Rosetta Stone.

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