Mountains, Sea, and Sky (from Sketchbook VII)
Medium
Graphite on off-white wove paper
Dimensions
5 x 7 1/2 in. (12.7 x 19.1 cm)
Classification
Drawing
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Gifts in memory of Stephen D. Rubin, 1992
Accession Number
1992.2.1tt
Tags
Art Historical Context
William Trost Richards' *Mountains, Sea, Sky (from Sketchbook VII)* created in 1886, offers an intimate window into the working process of one of America's foremost 19th-century landscape artists.rawn in graphite on off-white w paper, this modest 5 x 7 1/2-inch sketch captures the dramatic interplay of rugged mountains, vast sea, and boundless sky—a quintessential theme in Richards' oeuvre. Housed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Wing it reflects the era's deep American reverence for the natural sublime. Richards, associated with the Hudson River School and influenced by Pre-Rapha...
About the Artist
William Trost Richards · 1833–1905
William Trost Richards (1833–1905) was a prominent American landscape and marine painter born in Philadelphia, where he attended Central High School before beginning his artistic training. Between 1850 and 1855, he studied part-time under the German-born Hudson River School artist Paul Weber while working as a designer and illustrator of ornamental metalwork. He exhibited his first works at the Pe...