The Tomb of Agamemnon

The Tomb of Agamemnon

Louis Jean Desprez

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Trained as an architect, the French artist Desprez was appointed by King Gustav III of Sweden in 1784 as the head stage designer for the Royal Opera in Stockholm. This drawing relates to the sets Desprez made for the Swedish opera Electra, which premiered at Drottningholm Castle on July 22, 1787. The scene of Agamemnon’s interment is in the prologue, which opens with Electra and Orestes plotting to avenge their father’s murder.Desprez’s rendering is cloaked in gloom, with torches and censers dramatically lighting the architecture from below.

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.