The Old Man and his Pomeranian Dog
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
plate: 3 3/8 x 3 1/2 in. sheet: 4 5/8 x 4 15/16 in.
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949
Accession Number
49.21.22
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the intimate etching *The Old Man and His Pomeranian Dog* (1817), German artist Johann Christoph Erhard a tender moment of everyday companionship. Created when Erhard was just 22, this small-scale print (plate: 3 3/8 x 3 1/2 in.) reflects the meticulous precision of early 19th-century German printmaking, a period when etching flourished as an accessible medium for detailed genre scenes. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, it entered the collection via The Elisha Whittelsey Fund in 1949. Erhard, a Nuremberg-based engraver influenced by the legacy of Al...
About the Artist
Johann Christoph Erhard · 1795–1822
Johann Christoph Erhard (1795–1822) was a German painter and etcher of the Romantic era whose sensitive landscape studies and skillful prints earned him a growing reputation before his tragically early death at twenty-six. Born in Nuremberg, he studied at the Nuremberg Academy and later in Munich, where he was influenced by the Romantic landscape tradition and the revival of interest in the art of...