Sketches on the Coast Survey Plate

James McNeill Whistler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Whistler made his first etching while employed as a draftsman at the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in Washington, D.C., between 1854 and 1855. A staff member taught him the technique and supplied him with a copper plate, on which he etched topographic renderings of coastlines, then sketched freely drawn figures, and an oval vignette representing "Mrs. Partington and Ike"—characters from a Mark Twain story. The hooded hidalgo, or minor Spanish nobleman, at upper right is likely a self-portrait that hints at the artist’s bubbling ambition. Within a few months, he would be in Paris, pursing an artistic career.

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