Plein Air Painter at an Easel
Medium
Recto: aquatint and engraving; verso: red chalk
Dimensions
Sheet: 14 5/8 × 9 1/2 in. (37.1 × 24.1 cm)
Classification
Prints|Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund and The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1969
Accession Number
69.524.47
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the world of 19th-century outdoor artistry with *Plein Air Painter at an Easel*, an anonymous German print from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints collection. This charming work captures a male artist at work en plein air—painting directly from nature in the open air—a practice that gained momentum in the mid-1800s as artists sought to capture fleeting light and atmosphere, foreshadowing movements like Impressionism. Though the exact date is unknown, its depiction reflects the Romantic and Realist fascination with nature and everyday creativity in German art circles...