The Newspaper

James Tissot

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Among the first prints Tissot made after he returned to Paris from London in late 1882, this etching reprises a pastel now in the collection of the Petit Palais, Paris. With the addition of the horse-chestnut leaves to a previously plain background, the print places the sitter more clearly in an outdoor setting. Her consumption of the latest news in addition to her fashionable hat and coat signal her status as an up-to-date woman. The subject of the modern Parisian woman preoccupied Tissot more than ever during this period as he prepared a major series of paintings titled "La Femme à Paris" (Women in Paris) for an exhibition in 1885. He included the pastel on which this print is based in that same exhibition.

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