A figure weeping over a grave

A figure weeping over a grave

George Richmond

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Within a lunette, an heroically muscled young man mourns within a churchyard, near a child’s grave. At right, a palm tree that bends sympathetically over the desolate figure recalls Biblical designs by William Blake, whom Richmond revered. The distant landscape, dotted with tiny buildings, displays a touch perfected during the artist's training as a miniaturist, and resembles brown ink drawings by his friend Samuel Palmer. Around 1826, the two young men had formed "The Ancients," an artistic brotherhood that looked closely at early Italian and Northern prints and found inspiration in the landscape near Shoreham in Kent. Richmond here melds romantic references – a graveyard setting, gothic church façade, and figure confronting mortality – with hints of divine comfort offered by nature.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A figure weeping over a graveA figure weeping over a graveA figure weeping over a graveA figure weeping over a graveA figure weeping over a grave

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.