Autumn Scattering Leaves

John La Farge

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

With Louis Comfort Tiffany, John La Farge was a pioneer of stained-glass design in the United States. Watercolor was especially well suited for developing the designs because the transparency of the medium could suggest the glowing gemlike tones of the glass. Autumn Scattering Leaves, an allegorical representation of the season, was originally created as a stained-glass window proposal for a private home on Long Island. Although the patrons selected a different La Farge design of a figure in classical garb, the artist exhibited the lyrical watercolor as an independent work.

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