Street in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer

Vincent van Gogh

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the summer of 1888, Van Gogh, who was then living in Arles, made a trip to the small Mediterranean fishing village of Saintes-Maries de la Mer, where he made a painted view of this street with its thatched roofs and smoking chimneys. This drawing was one of fifteen that were sent, in the month of July alone, to Van Gogh's friend, the artist Émile Bernard, in Brittany, to keep Bernard up to date on the work he was doing. In these vibrant drawings, Van Gogh captured the essence of the paintings while creating the compositions anew in a different medium.

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