Driving sheep in a rocky landscape

David Cox

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Beginning in the 1830s, Cox became known for his distinctive, washy handling, which was well suited to conveying effects of wind and weather. His late style is used here to represent a shepherd and his flock. Reserved paper indicates a bright cloud in the sky, and scratches on a tree trunk suggest sparkles of recent rain. A similar work, View near Betwys-y-Coed (1846; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery), provides an approximate date and locale for this drawing. Cox visited the Conwy valley in Wales every summer from 1844 to 1856. He wrote to his son in 1853 to explain his rough handling as signifying landscapes that are "the work of the mind [rather than] portraits of places."

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