Jeanne Gonzales Painting in the Garden

Henri-Charles Guérard

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jeanne Gonzales, the sister-in-law (and later wife) of the artist, sits at an easel at the edge of a cultivated garden. Guérard composed this print by layering three plates inked in blue, yellow, and red. In this impression, only portions of the red plate received ink, leaving the complexion of the sitter more yellow than in other examples of the final state. After Bracquemond’s "In the Zoological Garden" (ca. 1873), this work represents the next major step in the development of color etching prior to Mary Cassatt’s masterful works of the 1890s.

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