Tiger Lying in the Desert

Eugène Delacroix

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Eugène Delacroix worked along side the artist Antoine-Louis Barye (1796-1875) on numerous animal studies between 1828-1830 in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. During this time, he studied the anatomy of cats in detail, even observing their dissections, which resulted in successul works on paper and paintings depicting tigers in the years to follow. His contemporary Théophile Gautier (1811-1872) once likened the artist to his subject matter: " He was mellow, soft as velvet, seductive as one of those tigers whose extraordinary supple grace he excelled in rendering."

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