Janet Halleck Drake

Henry Inman

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Janet Halleck Drake was the daughter of the New York poet Joseph Rodman Drake and named for her father’s friend, the poet Fritz Greene Halleck. She was about seven years old when she sat for Inman, who placed her in a fanciful woodland setting. Miss Drake’s top hat is somewhat emblematic of the artist, who was known for wearing one about town. Inman exhibited the portrait in New York in 1825 and a reviewer found it “beautiful.”

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art