A man and a woman riding a mule; page 36 from the "Images of Spain" Album (F)

A man and a woman riding a mule; page 36 from the "Images of Spain" Album (F)

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

While evoking a formula used to represent the Holy Family’s Flight into Egypt, Goya departed from that familiar tale to present a love story. He crafts an intriguing scene of romantic courtship using a reduced visual vocabulary. The posture of the riders—which denies us a clear view of the woman—their attire, and their animated conversation suggest various interpretations. They might be a couple giving free rein to furtive affection; alternatively, the man may have abducted the woman from her parental home, an informal marriage procedure once common in rural Spain.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A man and a woman riding a mule; page 36 from the "Images of Spain" Album (F)A man and a woman riding a mule; page 36 from the "Images of Spain" Album (F)A man and a woman riding a mule; page 36 from the "Images of Spain" Album (F)A man and a woman riding a mule; page 36 from the "Images of Spain" Album (F)A man and a woman riding a mule; page 36 from the "Images of Spain" Album (F)

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.