Portrait of Edgar Degas

Marcellin Desboutin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

For his numerous informal portraits, such as this small profile of Edgar Degas, Desboutin preferred the directness of drypoint—a technique in which the artist directly scratches the image with a sharp needle, effectively drawing on the copper plate. With minimal lines, Desboutin skillfully created an intimate image of his friend, one of several known portraits of Degas by Desboutin. The two had a long-lasting and productive friendship, with Desboutin even encouraging Degas to try printmaking again in the mid-1870s, after more than a ten-year hiatus. In turn, Degas depicted Desboutin beside the actress Ellen Andrée in his now famous painting "In a Café (L’Absinthe)" of 1875–76 (Musée d’Orsay, Paris).

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