Maximilian I

Lucas van Leyden

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This sensitive portrayal of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, produced in commemoration of his death in 1519, is one of Lucas's most technically innovative works. It demonstrates how, for the first time in Northern Europe, an artist combined the techniques of etching and engraving. Etching allowed Lucas greater freedom of draftsmanship, but at the time the print was made, its use as a printmaking technique was still rather new. He therefore turned to engraving in the areas that required greater precision. Thus, the artist engraved Maximilian's face with very fine, sharp lines, but the less rigid, wavering, and slightly more animated strokes in the rest of the composition were etched.

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