Barren Coast and Slight Storm

John Glover

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Made when Glover was in his twenties and working as a drawing master in Lichfield, Staffordshire, this drawing demonstrates his early skill. When the Old Watercolour Society was established he moved to London, and his contributions to the group's first exhibition in 1806 prompted Rudolph Ackermann to remark that these, “at once raised his reputation to its greatest height. The magic of his effects, the truth and beauty that prevailed in his works, excited the general eagerness to become possessed of his drawings; and the applications from the many…were sufficient to have employed ten artists of his abilities.” The present work may be based on a sketch from a summer tour, later developed in the studio. Loosely painted foreground boulders give way to frothy waves and rising spray, with a distant peak backed by scudding clouds and a band of rain moving toward a headland stilll bathed in sunlight. Glover may have used the sheet to show students how brushwork and washes could be applied to evoke varied light and weather effects.

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