On the Hill Side (Our English Coasts, 1852), from "The Art Journal"

On the Hill Side (Our English Coasts, 1852), from "The Art Journal"

William Holman Hunt

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cousen's engraving is based on Holman Hunt's picture which was first exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1853 as "Our English Coasts, 1852" (Tate Britain). In 1855 the painting was shown in Paris as "Strayed Sheep" and admired by Eugène Delacroix who made glowing note of it in his diary. Sketched at Fairlight, near Hastings, the carefully observed landscape has several elements that betray contemporary political and religious issues of the time. One of these was renewed English anxiety at a possible French invasion following Emperor Napoléon III's seizure of power in 1851. The print was first published in the London-based periodical "The Art Journal" in October 1877 simply titled "On the Hill Side."

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

On the Hill Side (Our English Coasts, 1852), from "The Art Journal"On the Hill Side (Our English Coasts, 1852), from "The Art Journal"On the Hill Side (Our English Coasts, 1852), from "The Art Journal"On the Hill Side (Our English Coasts, 1852), from "The Art Journal"On the Hill Side (Our English Coasts, 1852), from "The Art Journal"

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.