The Resurrection of Christ

Joseph Heintz the Elder

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the presence of Roman soldiers, some of whom continue to slumber undisturbed, Christ rises from the grave. Light streams from the sky, catching the rim of a shield and accentuating the muscular bodies of the figures. The inscription at lower left, in Heintz’s hand, indicates that he produced this sheet after a composition by Hans Speckaert, whose work Heintz encountered in Rome and whose fluid draftsmanship he emulates here.

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