Men hunting; page 105 from the "Images of Spain" Album (F)

Men hunting; page 105 from the "Images of Spain" Album (F)

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The present drawing records the traditional setup for decoy hunting. Owls, either taxidermied or alive, were strategically positioned during daytime to attract hostile birds. The hunter would then shoot the descending birds or catch them with a net or snare—the maneuver the figure on the right is about to perform. Here, the hunters wait behind a bush as a flock of birds approaches the owl. Goya initially considered including a third man or arranging them differently, as the faint black chalk outline of a figure in the background reveals.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Men hunting; page 105 from the "Images of Spain" Album (F)Men hunting; page 105 from the "Images of Spain" Album (F)Men hunting; page 105 from the "Images of Spain" Album (F)Men hunting; page 105 from the "Images of Spain" Album (F)Men hunting; page 105 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.