Fishermen's cottages at Hastings

William Henry Hunt

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Early in his career, Hunt often spent winters in the coastal town Hastings, lodging in the Old Town near the local fishermen. This sketch uses freshly colored washes to describe working structures and likely dates to the first phase of the artist's career, which was devoted mostly to landscapes and architectural views. Once Hunt was elected an Associate of the Old Water-colour Society in 1824, his focus began to shift to rustic figures, often shown within detailed interiors, and to still-lives. The present image of wooden cottages with pinkish roofs, and adjacent yards bounded by wooden fences, demonstrates a delight in weathered, work-a-day materials.

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