Lessing J. Rosenwald
1930
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
etching
Dimensions
sheet: 36.2 × 25.4 cm (14 1/4 × 10 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1980.45.978
Art Historical Context
This 1930 etching Scottish artist James McBey portrays Lessing J. Rosenwald, the prominent American collector and philanthropist whose extraordinary gifts formed the core of the National Gallery of Art’s prints and drawings holdings. Rendered on a sheet measuring 14 1/4 by 10 inches, the work exemplifies McBey’s mastery of the etching medium, in which acid bites delicate lines into a metal plate to create finely detailed, luminous impressions that were especially prized in the early twentieth century. Because the portrait belongs to the Rosenwald Collection, it carries an intimate historical ...
About the Artist
James McBey
James McBey (1883–1959) was a Scottish artist renowned for his etchings and paintings, emerging from humble beginnings in Newburgh, Aberdeenshire, as the illegitimate son of a blacksmith's daughter. Largely self-taught, he left school at fifteen to work as a bank clerk in Aberdeen, where he devoured art books from the public library and attended evening classes at Gray's School of Art to hone his ...