Allegory of America

Allegory of America

Nicolaes Berchem

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This drawing served as a model for an engraved title page in the second volume of an atlas on the Americas, Joan Blaeu’s Atlas Maior (Amsterdam, 1662). Berchem, a prolific draftsman and painter who specialized in landscapes, reconfigured the New World allegory for a Dutch context by including a detailed setting alluding to trade and religion. At the indigenous woman’s feet, another native pours out gold. A salamander and gold bars suggest the exoticism and riches associated with the Americas. Background scenes show the metal being mined, carried, and transported on a European vessel. Up in the clouds, European allegories convert natives to Christianity and battle the devil.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Allegory of AmericaAllegory of AmericaAllegory of AmericaAllegory of AmericaAllegory of America

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.