An Academy by Lamplight

William Pether

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In a stone chamber containing the "Nymph with a Shell and Borghese Gladiator," six fancifully dressed young artists have assembled to sketch by lamp-light. The virtuoso realism—exemplified by the chipped stone plinth—belies the scene's mysterious, romantic mood. Pether's exquisite mezzotint, based on a painting by Wright, displays subtle tonal range, with deep shadows warmed by the brownish hue of the ink. Against a range of velvety darks, highlights—such as the protruding sheet beneath the foremost draftsman's sketch—appear almost to glow.

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art