Portrait of Félix Bracquemond, from "L'Art"

Portrait of Félix Bracquemond, from "L'Art"

Félix Bracquemond

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This print, published in the journal "L’Art," accompanied a profile of Bracquemond, who was one of the most accomplished and prolific participants in the etching revival of the second half of the nineteenth century. Rajon based the print on a pastel self-portrait that Bracquemond exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1853. The image suggested the young artist’s grand ambitions for his career and, more broadly, for etching itself. He boldly meets the viewer’s gaze, surrounded by a small sculpture alluding to his classical training and the tools of his trade—an engraver’s burin and a bottle of etching acid.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Portrait of Félix Bracquemond, from "L'Art"Portrait of Félix Bracquemond, from "L'Art"Portrait of Félix Bracquemond, from "L'Art"Portrait of Félix Bracquemond, from "L'Art"Portrait of Félix Bracquemond, from "L'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.