Hamlet and Horatio before the Gravediggers

Hamlet and Horatio before the Gravediggers

Eugène Delacroix

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

After completing at least six of his lithographic illustrations for "Hamlet," Delacroix put the project on hold in 1836, likely due to the pressures of state commissions for large-scale public decorations. He returned to it only in 1842; nevertheless, he remained preoccupied with certain scenes in the interim, especially act 5, scene 1, in which gravediggers preparing a burial site unearth the skull of Yorick, a jester Hamlet had known as a child. Delacroix based the composition on a painting of the same subject he had exhibited at the Salon of 1839. He made minor adjustments, notably giving Hamlet a more active stance and greater prominence in the scene.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hamlet and Horatio before the GravediggersHamlet and Horatio before the GravediggersHamlet and Horatio before the GravediggersHamlet and Horatio before the GravediggersHamlet and Horatio before the Gravediggers

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.