Bibi Valentin
James McNeill Whistler
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
This image of a young girl seated on a bed, wearing a long dress and high buttoned boots, comes from a series of portraits that Whistler made in 1859. The subject, whose pet name was Bibi, was a daughter of the Valentin family. Her mother later wrote to the artist to remind him that they lived on Rue des Sts. Pères in Paris when the etching was made. The Met's collection includes two other impressions (83.1.19 and 17.21.69).
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.