Rip Van Winkle Returned in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, June 2009

Artist/Maker
John Rogers (1829–1904)

Title/ObjectName
Rip Van Winkle Returned

Date
1871; this version, 1871 or after

Medium
Painted plaster

Dimensions
20 3/4 x 10 x 8 in. (52.7 x 25.4 x 20.3 cm)

Credit Line
Purchase, The Edgar J. Kaufmann Foundation Gift, 1968 (68.110)

This plaster sculpture, based on the popular Washington Irving story published in 1819, depicts Rip returning as an old man from his twenty-year sleep in the Catskills. The sculptor, Rogers, secured a middle-class audience through the maxim of large sales and small profits, producing some eighty thousand plasters during his career. In "Rip Van Winkle Returned," Rogers displays his mastery of realistic subjects, skillfully detailing the wrinkles in Rip's tattered coat and trousers, his flowing beard, his confused expression, and his aged dog.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/americ... and the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.