Instead of Man Reading We Have the Bookworm

Quick Overview

Artist: Christopher Pearse Cranch (American, Alexandria, Virginia 1813–1892 Boston, Massachusetts)
Date: 1830–92
Medium: Pen and brown ink
Dimensions: sheet: 4 7/8 x 8 3/8 in. (12.4 x 21.3 cm)
Type: Drawing
Classification: Drawings
Department: Drawings and Prints
Credit line: Gift of Whitney Dall Jr., in memory of Emily Dall, 1976
Accession no.: 1976.625.20(4)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s open-access data does not include an ownership history for this work. See the museum’s page for this work.

Standing on the Base Ground... I Become a Transparent Eyeball (Illustration for Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature")
Christopher Pearse Cranch
1830–92 · Drawing
Museum collection · via the Metropolitan Museum of ArtAT-00023187
I Expand and Live in the Warm Day Like Corn and Melons (Illustration for Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature")
Christopher Pearse Cranch
1830–92 · Drawing
Museum collection · via the Metropolitan Museum of ArtAT-00023188
Build Your Own World. So Fast Will Disagreeable Things...Vanish (Illustration for Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature")
Christopher Pearse Cranch
1830–92 · Drawing
Museum collection · via the Metropolitan Museum of ArtAT-00023189

Data retrieved from the Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 9, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.