Ancient Scene with a Funeral Ceremony for an Actor

Ancient Scene with a Funeral Ceremony for an Actor

Louis Jean Desprez

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Acquired in 1971 as the work of Louis Jean Desprez, the drawing was re-attributed to Louis Félix de La Rue in 1977. In 2017, the attribution reverted to Desprez based on Marie-Anne Dupuy-Vachey's identification of the drawing as one commissioned from the artist by the abbé de Saint-Non for his publication, Voyage Pittoresque. The sheet is described in a manuscript by Vivant Denon as representing the funerary cermony following the death of a celebrated actor (Dupuy-Vachey, M.-A., Vivant Denon et le 'Voyage pittoresque': un manuscrit inconnu, Paris: Fondation Custodia, 2009, p.116).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ancient Scene with a Funeral Ceremony for an ActorAncient Scene with a Funeral Ceremony for an ActorAncient Scene with a Funeral Ceremony for an ActorAncient Scene with a Funeral Ceremony for an ActorAncient Scene with a Funeral Ceremony for an Actor

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.