Songs: "What's this dull town to me..."
Medium
Soft-ground etching
Dimensions
Image: 7 7/8 × 10 3/16 in. (20 × 25.8 cm) Sheet: 10 15/16 × 14 15/16 in. (27.8 × 38 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Wilbur Macey Stone, 1921
Accession Number
21.94.2(3)
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
Art Historical Context
This 1822 soft-ground etching, titled *Songs: "What's this dull town to me..."*, was created by British artist Henry Thomas Alken and published by Thomas McLean. Held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Drawings and Prints, the work measures roughly 8 by 10 inches and employs soft-ground etching, a technique favored in the early nineteenth century for its ability to produce soft, grainy lines that mimic the look of a pencil drawing. Such prints were widely circulated as affordable illustrations, often accompanying sheet music or songbooks. The composition depicts men and women w...
About the Artist
Henry Thomas Alken|Thomas McLean (British|British) · 1785 |1788 –1851 |1875
British, London 1785–1851 London|British, 1788–1875