Germain-Augustin and Rose de Saint-Aubin, Drawn by Their Uncle

Gabriel de Saint-Aubin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

During the Rococo period, French artists frequently depicted children, sometimes at play and spontaneous in their gestures and expressions, but also engaged in study, their education the foundation for the future of society. In 1766, Saint-Aubin, a draftsman and chronicler of Parisian cultural life, drew a portrait of his niece and nephew in profile. Based on preparatory studies made after life, this finished drawing presents the children as well educated and well behaved, with the restraint and self-confidence of adults. Rose, seated at right, holds a hurdy-gurdy, a musical instrument popular in the eighteenth century.

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