Copyist at the Metropolitan Museum
John Sloan (1871-1954), Copyist at the Metropolitan Museum, etching, 1908, signed, titled, and inscribed “100 proofs,” also inscribed by the printer “Ernest Roth imp.” Reference: Morse 148, eighth state (of 8), from the JS edition (75 printed). In very good condition, on tan/ivory wove paper, with full margins, 7 1/2 x 9, the sheet 11 x 13 1/8 inches.
A fine impression printed in a brownish/black ink.
In his diary of September 1908 Sloan wrote “In the evening I stared to make a plate of a copyist at work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, crowd around as it is a sheep picture which the lay copyist is ‘takin’ off’. Made preliminary drawing on tissue paper and grounded my plate and got the red chalk tracking sketches on the ground.”
Sloan had much difficulty with the faces of Dolly (his wife) and himself, at the left; that’s the reason for the multiple states. He noted in later years: “I’ve always had trouble with portraits of members of the family. I had the head of Dolly in and out of the plate innumerable times.”
In addition to the JS edition (in which this impression was included) there was a Weyhe edition of 115 prints, as part of a portfolio called Twelve Prints by Contemporary Artists, published in 1919.