Study of a woman and child

Study of a woman and child

Sir Joshua Reynolds

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The woman's seated pose is remarkably dynamic: as she turns to gaze over her shoulder, curls tumble from her coiffure, and folds of drapery spill across her lap, revealing slender legs crossed at the ankles. By contrast to the careful articulation of her face, her fingers are only schematically indicated, while the contours of the child's naked body are succinctly described in short strokes of black chalk. This rare compositional study by Sir Joshua Reynolds--the leading British portrait painter of the eighteenth century, first president of the Royal Academy, an influential theoretician of art, and a distinguished collector--is not related to any known painting. But its allusion to the Madonna and Child, and severely classicizing, Michelangelesque style link it to the artist's most accomplished grand-manner portraits of the 1770s.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Study of a woman and childStudy of a woman and childStudy of a woman and childStudy of a woman and childStudy of a woman and child

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.