The Nun in "Count Burckhardt" (for "Once a Week," September 27, 1862)

The Nun in "Count Burckhardt" (for "Once a Week," September 27, 1862)

James McNeill Whistler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1862 Whistler designed four wood engravings for the London periodical "Once a Week." Many of his Pre-Raphaelite friends were illustrating poems and short stories at this moment and the decade proved to be the start of a new flowering of British illustration. Founded in 1859, "Once a Week" supported the movement and was known as a "journal of the younger men." Whister's image responds to the ballad "Burckhardt von Keller" which tells of a count bewitched and then consumed by a magical serpent-like woman, leaving his bethrothed Clara to wonder what has befallen him. Related lines read: " Nor rode he again at even-tide, / To the Lady Clara his plighted bride. / Weep not, Clara, weeping is vain; / Tears will not bring him back again. / Long at the turret thy watch mayst keep, / Wilt nevermore see him climb the steep..." This is a proof of the wood engraving published September 27, 1862.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Nun in "Count Burckhardt" (for "Once a Week," September 27, 1862)The Nun in "Count Burckhardt" (for "Once a Week," September 27, 1862)The Nun in "Count Burckhardt" (for "Once a Week," September 27, 1862)The Nun in "Count Burckhardt" (for "Once a Week," September 27, 1862)The Nun in "Count Burckhardt" (for "Once a Week," September 27, 1862)

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.