Berthe

James Tissot

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This print is among the first few that Tissot made after he returned to Paris from London in late 1882 based on pastel portraits and heads of modern Parisian woman, a major theme he also explicitly addressed with a series of paintings titled "La Femme à Paris." Berthe may also have posed for "Sunday Morning" (60.621.5), presumed to be after a now-lost pastel. In this print, Tissot remained very loyal to his original pastel, now in the collection of the Petit Palais, Paris. Both show a highly finished approach to the head, hand, and upper body and a looser, sketchier lower part of the composition.

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