Allegorical Figures for a Ceiling Decoration

Michel Corneille the Elder

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Trained in the studio of Simon Vouet (French, 1590–1649), Corneille the Elder was one of the twelve original members of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, founded in Paris in 1648. He painted commissions for churches and décors for private homes. Perched on ornamental elements and seen from below, these softly modeled, draped figures were likely intended as part of a ceiling design.

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