Orphan

James Tissot

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tissot used printmaking to disseminate his painted compositions, in this case, one that he exhibited in London in 1879. Like "The Widower" (2019.282.9), this etching relays a morose scene enveloped by a tangle of vegetation. His companion, Kathleen Newton, and her daughter served as models, as they did repeatedly throughout the late 1870s. Tissot never completed the etching, printing only a small group of trial proofs. We do not know why he abandoned the plate, but a burnishing of the child’s head in one impression suggests that he may not have been content with the way the figure had been etched

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