The Wheel of Fortune

La Farge combined gouache, watercolor, and graphite on light tan wove paper to construct the composition. The work is executed in monochrome tones, utilizing fluid washes that create soft gradations from light to dark across the sky and landscape. The brushwork varies considerably across the image: broad, atmospheric passages define the sky and clouds, while more defined linear details articulate the wheel and the figure's drapery. The overall finish balances sketchy spontaneity with areas of more finished rendering, particularly in the face and torso of the central figure. This hazy, mysterious handling of the central figure's face aligns the work with the aesthetic strategies of contemporary French Symbolist painters such as Odilon Redon. A signature and date appear in the upper right corner.

Created in 1900, the work later entered the Metropolitan Museum of Art through the bequest of Susan Dwight Bliss in 1966. It carries the object number 67.55.170. The drawing was included in the 1970 exhibition catalog titled 19th C American Drawings: Art and Architecture, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The concept of fortune balancing on a wheel clearly held lasting interest for La Farge, as he returned to the exact motif the following year when commissioned in 1901 to design a stained glass window for the Frick office building in Pittsburgh, resulting in a related work now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.

John La Farge (1835-1910) was a multifaceted American artist recognized for his paintings, murals, interior design, and stained glass innovations. By 1900, when he created this work, he was an established figure in the American art world, having co-founded the Society of American Artists in 1877 and serving as president of the National Society of Mural Painters from 1899 to 1904. He held a patent for superimposing panes of glass, a technical innovation central to his stained glass practice. His extensive travels in Asia and the South Pacific during the 1880s and 1890s profoundly influenced his painterly approach to color and atmosphere. The Symbolist leanings visible in this drawing reflect his awareness of broader international trends, moving beyond the conservative boundaries of the National Academy of Design that he and his peers had earlier protested.