Study of a Seated Woman

Study of a Seated Woman

John Hoppner

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hoppner became the leading portraitist working in London after Sir Joshua Reynolds retired in 1789. Early In his career, the artist often focused on literary or dramatic subjects, and the present work relates to "Clara at the Tomb of Eloisa," reproduced in mezzotint in 1786. The theme comes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "Julie; ou, La Nouvelle Héloïse," a novel in which the heroine, Héloïse (Eloisa), is separated from her great love Saint-Preux, and dies hoping to be united with him in heaven. The artist imagined Eloisa's close friend Clara mourning at her tomb and used his wife, Phoebe, as a model. Black and white chalks are applied in a loose, expressive manner reminiscent of Thomas Gainsborough and a romantically overgrown landscape suggested by rapidly indicated trees and hints of foliage.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Study of a Seated WomanStudy of a Seated WomanStudy of a Seated WomanStudy of a Seated WomanStudy of a Seated Woman

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.