La Vielle aux loques

La Vielle aux loques

James McNeill Whistler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

After visiting the Rhineland during a summer–fall tour in 1858, Whistler created this image of an elderly woman sorting rags (loques). He here develops a formula to which he would often return—using an open entrance to frame a receding interior that contains figures and objects. Like "La Mère Gérard" and "La Rétameuse," the artist focuses on an old working woman, dignified but without sentiment. Created late in 1858 this is one of the most complex prints in "Douze eaux-fortes d’après nature" (Twelve Etchings from Nature), the artist's first published set.


Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.