A Peasant Greeting the Statue of Mary
Medium
Etching; fourth state
Dimensions
plate: 6 5/8 x 8 in. sheet: 9 3/4 x 13 5/8 in.
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949
Accession Number
49.21.21
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the serene etching *A Peasant Greeting the Statue of Mary* (1817), German artists Johann Christoph Erhard and Kettner capture a moment of quiet devotion in rural life. Created as a fourth-state impression—meaning it reflects refined stages of the printing plate—this work belongs to the early 19th-century tradition of genre scenes, where everyday folk interact with the sacred. The scene unfolds along a tree-lined road, with a humble farmer pausing to honor a roadside statue of the Virgin Mary, evoking the enduring piety of European countrysides amid post-Napoleonic recovery. Etching, the me...
About the Artist
Johann Christoph Erhard|Ferdinand Kettner · 1795–1822
Johann Christoph Erhard (1795–1822) was a German painter and etcher of the Romantic era whose sensitive landscape studies and skillful prints earned him a growing reputation before his tragically early death at twenty-six. Born in Nuremberg, he studied at the Nuremberg Academy and later in Munich, where he was influenced by the Romantic landscape tradition and the revival of interest in the art of...