
Gathering Berries (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. XVIII)
Winslow Homer
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
In 1857 Winslow Homer began his eighteen-year career working as an illustrator for Harper’s Weekly, which launched in New York in the same year. The publication was one of the most successful examples of an illustrated weekly, a type of magazine dominated by images rather than text. Weeklies could be printed quickly, cheaply, and in large quantities thanks to recent advances in wood-engraving technology, in which an image was translated onto a wood block and then cast electrolytically from a wax mold. After working as a freelance illustrator during the early years of his career, Homer was hired by Harper’s as a full-time correspondent upon the outbreak of the American Civil War (1861–65). His work for the weekly ranges from wartime scenes observed from the front to nostalgic views evoking America’s agrarian past.
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
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.