Portrait of a Man, Seated in Front of a Writing Desk

Portrait of a Man, Seated in Front of a Writing Desk

Henry Edridge

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the 1790s Edridge was a proponent of a new type of small-scale full-length portrait drawn in graphite and finished using ink and watercolor washes. This striking example depicts a country gentleman at work in his study; the artist emphasized his bookcase by adding a strip of paper at the top. A small vase near the sitter’s shoulder suggests his love of the outdoors, a rough caricature on the wall introduces a note of humor, and a collapsed hanging scale at upper left hints at the practicalities of running a country estate. An old inscription on the verso of the sheet identifies the sitter as Henry Duncombe (1728–1818), a Yorkshire gentleman who entered Parliament in 1780, voted with the Opposition, and supported the reform efforts of William Pitt the younger

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Portrait of a Man, Seated in Front of a Writing DeskPortrait of a Man, Seated in Front of a Writing DeskPortrait of a Man, Seated in Front of a Writing DeskPortrait of a Man, Seated in Front of a Writing DeskPortrait of a Man, Seated in Front of a Writing Desk

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.