Nameless and Friendless, from "Illustrated London News"

Nameless and Friendless, from "Illustrated London News"

Emily Mary Osborn

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This print reproduces a painting (Tate Britain) exhibited by Osborn at the Royal Academy in 1857. When a subsequent owner lent the work to the International Exhibition in 1862, this related wood engraving was published in the "Illustrated London News." It shows a young woman artist, accompanied by a brother, standing nervously in the shop of an art dealer whom she hopes will buy a work—her black dress suggests the recent loss of parents and their support. Osborn added a Biblical quote to her title, "Nameless and Friendless: 'The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, etc.'—Proverbs, x, 15," to emphasize the plight of women artists who lacked financial means and were denied institutional access. The work should be read as a plea for reform rather than an illustration of personal experience, since Osborn's own family funded her training, and she sold paintings to influential clients such as Queen Victoria. From 1857, Osborn was active in feminist causes, joining the newly established Society of Female Artists that year, signing a petition addressed to the Royal Academy Schools in 1859 that asked for female students be admitted, and campaigning for women's suffrage in the 1880s.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Nameless and Friendless, from "Illustrated London News"Nameless and Friendless, from "Illustrated London News"Nameless and Friendless, from "Illustrated London News"Nameless and Friendless, from "Illustrated London News"Nameless and Friendless, from "Illustrated London News"

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.