Early morning near Loch Katrine in the Trossachs, Scotland

Early morning near Loch Katrine in the Trossachs, Scotland

John Glover

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Known as the "English Claude," after the famed seventeenth-century painter Claude Lorrain, Glover here applied that master’s golden Italianate vision to a northern subject. A member of London’s Society of Painters in Water-Colours, the artist demonstrated the medium’s ability to convey atmospheric effects in works that commanded prices second only to those of his contemporary J. M. W. Turner. This exhibition piece depicts a locale bordering the Scottish Highlands. Delicate washes evoke sunlight diffused by mist, and Glover’s distinctive split-brush technique has been used to create fuzzy, layered foliage. Bright touches of light sparkle off a stream and the shoulder of a girl who carries a jug. Shortly after making this work, Glover moved to Tasmania and helped to establish Australian landscape painting.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Early morning near Loch Katrine in the Trossachs, ScotlandEarly morning near Loch Katrine in the Trossachs, ScotlandEarly morning near Loch Katrine in the Trossachs, ScotlandEarly morning near Loch Katrine in the Trossachs, ScotlandEarly morning near Loch Katrine in the Trossachs, Scotland

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.