A Rocky Coast

William Trost Richards

1877 · Watercolor and gouache on fibrous brown wove paper · The American Wing

In their effort to elevate the status of watercolor in the U.S., some members of the American Watercolor Society produced works on the scale of exhibition oil paintings, and even worked heavily in gouache or body color, to lend the medium some of the richness of effect of oil. Richards joined this trend around 1876, and embellished on it by working on a dark, heavy, fibrous paper—used to line carpets—that approximated both the textural qualities of canvas and the conventional half-tone gray or brown grounds on which painters traditionally applied their colors. Richards found that his carpet paper "drawings," as he called them, were "very popular." The great Metropolitan Museum benefactor Catharine Lorillard Wolfe purchased this one at his Newport studio in 1877.

Artist

William Trost Richards

Date

1877

Medium

Watercolor and gouache on fibrous brown wove paper

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Bequest of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, 1887