Sun Bird (James S. Wallace), from The Comic Natural History of the Human Race
Medium
Color lithograph with watercolor and gum
Dimensions
sheet: 10 13/16 x 7 1/16 in. (27.5 x 18 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Lincoln Kirstein, 1964
Accession Number
64.629.47(11)
Tags
Art Historical Context
Created in 1851, *Sun Bird (James S. Wallace)* belongs to the witty series *The Comic Natural History of the Human Race*, a playful send-up of both scientific illustration and contemporary society. This color lithograph with delicate watercolor and gum highlights transforms a real person—James S. Wallace—into a fanciful bird, blending portraiture with ornithological parody. The result pokes gentle fun at human vanity while showcasing the era’s fascination with classification and character types. Lithography, still relatively new in the mid-nineteenth century, allowed artists to reach wide aud...
About the Artist
Samuel Robinson|Henry Louis Stephens|Rosenthal (American|American|American) · 1800 |1824 |1840 –1900 |1882 |1900
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania|American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1824–1882 Bayonne, New Jersey|Philadelphia, Pennsylvania