Silhouette of Cecil Brent
19th century
Medium
Pen and ink, brush and wash
Dimensions
Sheet: 5 3/16 × 3 3/4 in. (13.1 × 9.5 cm)
Classification
Drawings|Ephemera
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Glenn Tilley Morse Collection, Bequest of Glenn Tilley Morse, 1950
Accession Number
50.602.184
Art Historical Context
In the intimate world of 19th portraiture, *Silhouette of Cecil Brent by A. Brent stands as a delicate gem of personal commemoration. Crafted in pen and ink with brush and wash on a modest sheet measuring just 5 3/16 × 3 3/4 inches, this work captures the subject's profile in stark, elegant black against white—a hallmark of the silhouette tradition. Likely created by a family member or close associate, given the shared surname, it reflects the era's affection for affordable, accessible likenesses that preserved loved ones' features without the expense of oil paintings. Silhouettes flourished ...