Memento Portrait of a Young Midshipman

Memento Portrait of a Young Midshipman

John Downman

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Brooklyn-born George Dupont Pratt became a noted philanthropist, collector, and Met trustee, leaving the institution several British drawings. In this work, the young subject’s blue jacket identifies him as a sailor in the Royal Navy, a distant ship signaling his imminent departure from home. Downman’s success as a Regency-era portraitist resulted from a technique he devised that combined chalks and watercolor, enabling him to capture appealing likenesses and make multiple copies of these portraits if required. He received commissions from the　royal family and nobility, but it was his many drawings for middle-class patrons that encouraged a growing contemporary taste for intimate, domestic-scale　portraiture. Born in Wales, Downman studied in Liverpool and London, traveled to Italy, and then worked in Cambridge, Plymouth, Chester, and Wrexham.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Memento Portrait of a Young MidshipmanMemento Portrait of a Young MidshipmanMemento Portrait of a Young MidshipmanMemento Portrait of a Young MidshipmanMemento Portrait of a Young Midshipman

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.