The botanist: a man in a garden examining its contents
1860–70
Medium
Etching on Japan paper
Dimensions
Sheet: 12 13/16 × 9 3/4 in. (32.5 × 24.8 cm) Plate: 11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Junius S. Morgan
Accession Number
23.106.2(1)
Tags
Art Historical Context
In Mariano Fortuny's etching *The Botanist: A Man in a Garden Examining Contents* (ca. 1860–70), we encounter a serene moment of scientific curiosity amid lush greenery. The Spanish artist, renowned for his luminous Orientalist paintings and meticulous detail, captures a gentleman intently studying plants, evoking the 19th-century fascination with botany during Europe's scientific enlightenment. Fortuny, active in Barcelona and later Morocco, blended Realism with exotic influences, and this print reflects his talent for rendering texture and light in intimate scale. Executed as an etching on ...
About the Artist
Mariano Fortuny, 1838–1874 (Spanish) · 1838 –1874
Spanish, 1838–1874