An Uninteresting Story

James Tissot

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Soon after his arrival in England in 1871, Tissot made a series of eighteenth-century costume genre scenes with the Thames river as a backdrop. It was not until later in the decade that he decided to make an etching after one of these Thames-side historical pictures. "An Uninteresting Story" reproduces a painting of the same title (private collection), which is itself based on the first work the artist exhibited at the Royal Academy, titled ironically, "An Interesting Story," ca. 1872 (National Gallery of Victoria). The comedic narrative subject of both versions aimed to appeal to Victorian tastes. In adopting the Thames-side setting, Tissot recalled the work of James McNeill Whistler, who had produced a suite of etchings featuring east London riverside scenes in 1859–61.

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