The Evening Lamp

Julian Alden Weir

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Weir admired the expressive potential of etching long before he attempted the technique: like his father before him, Weir collected old master prints, and particularly admired those of Rembrandt. Weir may well have had the Dutch artist's dark tonalities in mind when he etched this view of a woman reading by the lamplight, a cat outstretched at her feet. The compelling effects were hard-won: the artist recorded that "working by night" on this etching "injured my eyes."

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