The Satyr's Family

Jean Honoré Fragonard

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Few painters in eighteenth-century France were formally trained in printmaking and, for the most part, they left the engraving of their work to professionals. Around 1763–64, Fragonard tried his hand at etching, ultimately producing a small oeuvre of under thirty prints, of which the four Bacchanals are among the most admired. His facility with the etching needle, which he treated as a drawing instrument, is breathtaking. Loosely inspired by antique motifs, the Bacchanals depict playful scenes of satyrs and nymphs in the form of reliefs set in shallow landscapes, framed by the fecundity of nature. In this whimsical scene, a satyr and nymph kneel facing one another, each holding a child resembling the other, perhaps a pair of fraternal twins.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art