The Crucifixion of Christ

Hans Speckaert

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hans Speckaert was one of several Northern Mannerist painters working in Rome in the sixteenth century. His close study of the art of Michelangelo, Raphael, and other Italian Renaissance masters informs the muscular, monumental figures in this Crucifixion. Two other drawings of this subject made by Speckaert, perhaps in preparation for a painting, are more sedate. Speckaert's art strongly influenced his Northern contemporaries, as can be seen, in particular, in the drawings of Bartholomeus Spranger, Hans von Aachen, and Karel van Mander.

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