Advertisement for profile likenesses by Moses Chapman
1803–21
Medium
Letterpress
Dimensions
Sheet: 6 7/8 × 8 1/4 in. (17.5 × 20.9 cm)
Classification
Prints|Ephemera
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Glenn Tilley Morse Collection, Bequest of Glenn Tilley Morse, 1950
Accession Number
50.602.411
Art Historical Context
Step into the early 19th-century world of affordable portraiture with this charming letterpress advertisement for profile likenesses by Moses, produced sometime between 1803 and1821. Measuring a modest 6 7/8 × 8 1/4 inches, this ephemera—printed matter meant for short-term use—promotes Chapman's services in creating silhouette profiles, those stark black-and-white outlines that captured a sitter's profile with elegant simplicity. As an anonymous design likely produced by a local printer, it exemplifies the burgeoning commercial graphic arts in America, where letterpress technology allowed for ...
About the Artist
Anonymous|Moses Chapman
In the vast tapestry of art history, "Anonymous" stands not as a singular individual but as a collective designation for countless unidentified creators whose works have endured across millennia. These artists, spanning prehistoric cave painters to medieval illuminators and folk craftsmen, produced the foundational layers of human visual culture. Prior to the Renaissance, when individual fame emer...