Hooded Male Head (from Sketches on The Coast Survey Plate)
1854–55
Medium
Etching; proof impression of the only state (Glasgow 1); this is a fragment cut from the upper portion of "Sketches on the Coast Survey Plate" (Kennedy no. 1) by Whistler and mounted on a board with six other related fragments. Cited by Glasgow as the earliest known impression.
Dimensions
Sheet: 1 1/4 × 1 3/16 in. (3.1 × 3 cm) (fragment cut from the upper portion of "Sketches on the Coast Survey Plate")
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Margaret C. Buell, Helen L. King, and Sybil A. Walk, 1970
Accession Number
1970.121.15
Tags
Art Historical Context
In 1854–55, a young James McNeill Whistler, then just 20 years old, created *Hooded Male Head*, a tiny etching fragment extracted from the upper portion of his experimental plate *Sketches on the Coast Survey Plate*. This proof impression—cited as the earliest known example (Glasgow 1)—measures a mere 1¼ × 1⅛ inches, capturing a mysterious hooded male figure with delicate lines that hint at Whistler's emerging talent for capturing subtle form and shadow. The work stems from Whistler's brief stint at the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in Washington, D.C., where he drafted topographical maps bu...
About the Artist
James McNeill Whistler · 1834–1903
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was an American-born painter and printmaker who became a leading figure in the Aesthetic Movement and pioneer of Tonalism and Japonisme. He revolutionized art by championing "art for art's sake" and treating paintings as visual equivalents of musical compositions, titling works as "arrangements," "harmonies," and "nocturnes" to emphasize formal qualities o...