Orphan
ca. 1879
Medium
Etching on laid paper
Dimensions
sheet: 22 1/16 x 12 1/16 in. (56.1 x 30.7 cm) plate: 22 x 11 5/16 in. (55.9 x 28.7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1965
Accession Number
65.594.1
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Orphan** by James Tissot, created around 1879, captures a poignant moment through the lens of a master printmaker. Tissot, a artist who thrived in Victorian London, was renowned for his meticulous depictions of women and society figures, blending realism with narrative elegance. This etching likely centers on a young girl or woman—evoking themes of vulnerability and solitude suggested by the title—rendered with Tissot's signature attention to fashion, expression, and emotion. Etching on laid paper, technique where acid etches intricate lines into a metal plate for printing, allowed Tissot t...
About the Artist
James Tissot · 1836–1902
James Tissot (1836–1902) was a French painter and printmaker who spent much of his career in England and became renowned for his meticulously detailed depictions of fashionable Victorian society. Born Jacques Joseph Tissot in Nantes, he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris under Louis Lamothe and Hippolyte Flandrin and exhibited at the Salon from 1859. Tissot's early career in Paris produ...