Portrait of Charles Meryon, in profile

Félix Bracquemond

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bracquemond's second portrait of Meryon clearly indicated the subject's important position within the history of etching. The work drew upon the artistic tradition of medallion portraiture (17.190.449; 49.20.4), typically used to represent subjects of noble or elite status, to symbolically commemorate the elder printmaker. A verse inscribed at bottom center in this state of the print—describing "the grotesque face of the somber Meryon—paid further tribute to the artist, who often included poetic lines of his own composition on some states of his prints.

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