Armor

Odilon Redon

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This fantastical drawing of a helmeted woman in profile is one of four similar charcoal drawings Redon executed during the last decade of the nineteenth century. The sitter, rendered strangely mute by her helmetlike covering and untouchable by its thorny needles, varies slightly from sheet to sheet. While the exact meaning of Redon's image is unclear, it has been thought that the bizarre bondage imposed on his sitter expresses subconscious fear of female sexuality or, conversely, serves as a symbol of female fecundity. Equally important, however, is Redon's virtuoso handling of charcoal and his ability to capture its full range of tones, from the dark velvet quality of the helmet to the pallor of the woman's skin.

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