Mathurin Régnier

Eugène Delacroix

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Delacroix’s interest in literature drew him to projects of illustration. He produced this imaginary portrait of the satirical late sixteenth–early seventeenth-century poet Mathurin Régnier for "The French Plutarch: Lives of Illustrious Men and Women of France," published in six volumes from 1844 to 1847. He also designed portraits of Jean Froissart, François Rabelais, and John Calvin for the same edition. The choice of watercolor is surprising for a work intended to be reproduced in black and white, but the by-product is this vivid demonstration of the artist’s skills as a colorist.

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