Vultures on a Tree

Vultures on a Tree

Antoine-Louis Barye

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Best known as an animal sculptor, Barye also made numerous finished watercolors. This is one of a series that the Havemeyer family bequeathed to the Metropolitan in 1929 and is notable as the first drawing by the artist to enter their collection. Signs of death and decay dominate. The vultures perch on a leafless tree with their distinctive shapes outlined against a sky reddened by the setting sun. At lower right a stripped animal skull and bones testify to a recent meal. These details have been freely painted upon textured paper to create an image both expressive and naturalistic.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.