Free Copy of Giotto's "Navicella" (recto); Copy of Adam in Masaccio's Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and other Figure Studies (verso)

Free Copy of Giotto's "Navicella" (recto); Copy of Adam in Masaccio's Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and other Figure Studies (verso)

Parri Spinelli

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The early fifteenth-century painter Parri Spinelli, like many others, looked to the authority of the great Florentine artist Giotto di Bondone for inspiration. This large drawing is a free copy after Giotto’s monumental mosaic (since destroyed) in the portico of Old Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, as the inscription on the side of the boat indicates. The scene represents a miracle described in the Gospel of Matthew in which Christ saves the Apostles from a storm at sea. Though Parri’s penwork is at times halting, revealing the cautious hand of a copyist, he also took creative liberties in his composition. For example, it appears he enlarged the figures of Christ and Saint Peter and brought them to the foreground. Here, in a momentary lapse of faith, Peter sinks into the water but is rescued by Christ’s hand. The sheet was part of a bound volume that Parri would have kept for reference in composing his own designs.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Free Copy of Giotto's "Navicella" (recto); Copy of Adam in Masaccio's Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and other Figure Studies (verso)Free Copy of Giotto's "Navicella" (recto); Copy of Adam in Masaccio's Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and other Figure Studies (verso)Free Copy of Giotto's "Navicella" (recto); Copy of Adam in Masaccio's Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and other Figure Studies (verso)Free Copy of Giotto's "Navicella" (recto); Copy of Adam in Masaccio's Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and other Figure Studies (verso)Free Copy of Giotto's "Navicella" (recto); Copy of Adam in Masaccio's Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and other Figure Studies (verso)

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.