Arachne

Otto Henry Bacher

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Bacher spent much of his career in Europe, especially Venice, where he encountered the American artist James McNeill Whistler, whose style and technique would greatly influence him. Although Bacher also worked in paint, his primary pursuit was etching. Here, he depicts the mythological figure of Arachne, a mortal woman who challenged the goddess Athena to a weaving contest and, as a result, was transformed into a spider. Arachne’s hair merges with the strands of the web, while a spider drops down along the left margin.

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