Battle Scene with a Prisoner Being Bound, after Raphael

Battle Scene with a Prisoner Being Bound, after Raphael

Eugène Delacroix

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

As a copyist, Delacroix looked repeatedly to the art of Italian Renaissance master Raphael, suggesting an enduring appreciation for elements of classicism. Here, Delacroix carefully copied an etching that reverses a pen-and-ink drawing by Raphael (ca. 1506–7; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). Although executed on tracing paper, it is not a direct tracing; this copy is smaller than the print. Nevertheless, Delacroix meticulously replicated the lines of the etching in graphite in order to study the dynamic organization of bodies in the composition.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Battle Scene with a Prisoner Being Bound, after RaphaelBattle Scene with a Prisoner Being Bound, after RaphaelBattle Scene with a Prisoner Being Bound, after RaphaelBattle Scene with a Prisoner Being Bound, after RaphaelBattle Scene with a Prisoner Being Bound, after Raphael

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.