Standing Figure in Oriental Costume

Sebastiano Bombelli

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Standing figure in Oriental costume, made out of light-colored fabric with an elaborate pattern of scrolling leaves, worn under a cape, with a band across the chest, and a belt tied around the hips. The head is covered by a turban with thin, golden stripes. The boots are bordered with golden details, matching with the rest of the costume. The mannered, somewhat theatrical pose of the heavily draped and turbaned figure recalls Claude Vignon's Femmes Fortes, engraved by Jean Mariette as illustrations for a book by Père Pierre Le Moyne that appeared in 1647, likely inspiring this 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