The Embrace

Auguste Rodin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

When Rodin was pleased with a sketch from life, he copied or traced the composition onto a new sheet, adding washes for skin tone and hair color. He might then rework the drawing further by reinforcing certain areas with graphite and highlighting with watercolor and gouache. In this example, the artist maintains the tenderness of the couple’s embrace while creating a sense of vibration and energy through vigorous graphite strokes and yellow and blue watercolor mixed with gouache.

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