Group of Apostles

Group of Apostles

Hippolyte Flandrin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this study, Flandrin works out the positioning of two apostles—reprising the clasped hands of the figure in profile at right—in preparation for a mural titled "The Mission of the Apostles" in the nave of the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Près, Paris. The numbering of the grid along the lower edge from seventeen to twenty-two suggests how this study aligned with others in composing the mural. The artist completed eighty-five paintings throughout the sanctuary, choir, nave, and transepts of the church between 1842 and his death in 1864. As an ensemble, they represent the most ambitious religious decorative program completed in France in the nineteenth century.

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.