Tobit burying the Dead

Tobit burying the Dead

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the late 1630s, Castiglione began to study Rembrandt’s etchings. He is the first artist in Italy known to have borrowed directly from the Dutch master. Castiglione most likely learned about him from the Flemish artist-dealers Lucas and Cornelis de Wael, who were also active in Genoa. He was particularly drawn to Rembrandt’s night scenes, his use of single sources of light, and his tone and murky shadows that envelop scenes through incredible webs of etched lines. Although this work is not one of the scenes from the book of Tobit illustrated by Rembrandt, Castiglione chose to focus on Tobit’s righteous attempt to bury dead Israelites, in defiance of the Assyrian king, providing the perfect framework for depicting a covert act undertaken by the cover of night.

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.