The Patrol

Henri-Louis Dupray

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A familiar subject for the distinguished military painter, "The Patrol" is the third and final etching that Dupray published with Alfred Cadart, the leading promotor of etching in Paris during the third quarter of the century. The oversized and slightly awkward signature betrays his discomfort in the reversal required by the print medium, though the figures of the soldiers and horses are freely and adeptly conveyed. It may have been Dupray’s teacher Léon Cogniet (1794–1880) who encouraged Dupray to try his hand at etching in 1863 when he reproduced his first Salon painting. Dupray was at the height of his career having won medals at the Salons of 1872 and 1874, when he decided to attempt etching again.

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