Greenwich Pensioner

James McNeill Whistler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Whistler studied etching in London under the tutelage of his brother-in-law, Sir Francis Seymour Haden and in 1859 they visited Greenwich Park together, each making a print that depicts a resident of the nearby Royal Hospital for Seamen, a boarding house for ex-sailors. Brisk line work and careful shading depict sunlight flickering across the pensioner’s shirt, hat, and wrinkled pant legs. Focusing on the figure, Whistler eliminates the surrounding landscape that Haden emphasized in Sub Tegmine (Benath the Canopy, 17.3.276). Printmakers associated with the etching revival sought an expressive spontaneity akin to drawing in their works.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art