Street at Saverne

Street at Saverne

James McNeill Whistler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

After visiting the Alsatian town of Saverne in the summer of 1858, Whistler produced his first etched "Noctunre." Sharp recession heightens the irregular forms of old buildings, with a gas lantern hanging at right casting deep shadows. The choice of paper and "artistic" inking, carried out by the leading Parisian printer Auguste Delâtre, enhance the effect. Whistler included this work in his first published set, "Douze eaux-fortes d’après nature" (Twelve Etchings from Nature), which he always referred to 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 descendants gave to the Museum.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Street at SaverneStreet at SaverneStreet at SaverneStreet at SaverneStreet at Saverne

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.