Portrait of Charles Meryon

Félix Bracquemond

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Portraiture was a common means of showing friendship and respect among artists. Printmaking was especially well suited to this practice owing to its small scale, comparatively low production cost, and privately viewable format. Bracquemond represented Meryon twice during his prolific career, commemorating the friendship that he shared with the elder artist. The first of these prints, this etching originally belonged to a series of portraits Bracquemond produced for personal interest rather than exhibition or sale. Meryon is shown at the height of his career and looks toward the viewer with a direct and sober gaze that suggests respectability. The expressive style, produced with spare but clear lines, suggests that the work is as much a statement on the professional status of its producer as its subject.

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