En plein soleil

James McNeill Whistler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Whistler probably captured this image of a grisette, or working girl holding a parasol, in the countryside near Paris (the title translates to "In Full Sun"). Realist and naturalist ideas circulating among artists in France influenced the unidealized approach. One of Whistler's early etchings, it was made in the summer of 1858 before he set out in mid-August to tour the Rhineland. In November, it was included in "Douze eau-fortes d'apres Nature" ("Twelve Etchings from Nature"), known as the "French Set." This impression belonged to Thomas Winans, a Baltimore friend who financed the artist's move to Paris in 1855; Winans kept the print in an album that his descendants gave to the Museum.

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