Bust-Length Study of a Child

Pompeo Batoni

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Drawn after life, this delicate study renders the child's head and shoulders with the quiet naturalism that seems characteristic of Batoni, the eminent portraitist in the Neoclassical tradition. Born in Lucca, Batoni achieved a phenomenal international reputation as a painter, especially as a portraitist, and for decades was a prominent figure in the social and intellectual circles of Rome during the Enlightenment. The Museum owns two other drawings by Pompeo Batoni, one of which is a sheet of figure studies from the same date as this sheet (inv. no. 1975.131.5), and several canvases. The attribution to Batoni was confirmed by Edgar Peters Bowron, the noted specialist of the artist's oeuvre who edited the posthumous monograph by Anthony Clark.

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