Rip Van Winkle Returned

John Rogers American

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 736

Rogers secured national patronage through large sales and small profits, producing tinted plaster statuettes that were ubiquitous in late nineteenth-century middle-class homes. Popular mainly due to their storytelling qualities, some eighty thousand "Rogers Groups" were mass-produced and marketed through the sculptor’s New York studio showroom and mail-order catalogues. Rogers often drew on popular literature. In this work based on a short story by Washington Irving published in 1819, the Dutch American protagonist returns as an elderly man after a twenty-year sleep in the Catskill Mountains. Realistic anecdotal details include his tattered clothing, flowing beard, confused expression, and aged dog.

Rip Van Winkle Returned, John Rogers (American, Salem, Massachusetts 1829–1904 New Canaan, Connecticut), Painted plaster, American

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