Landscape with an Old Woman Holding a Spindle, after Domenico Campagnola

Landscape with an Old Woman Holding a Spindle, after Domenico Campagnola

Antoine Watteau

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A wealthy banker, Pierre Crozat (1661-1740) was one of the foremost collectors of drawings in the eighteenth century. He befriended Watteau, offering him commissions, housing, and access to his collection. Watteau was entranced with the sixteenth-century Venetian landscape drawings he found there and copied many of them. In this case, the original drawing by Domenico Campagnola (1500–1564) is also in the collection of the Museum (1972.118.243). Although he is faithful to Campagnola's composition, Watteau substituted his preferred medium, red chalk, for the Venetian's pen and brown ink.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Landscape with an Old Woman Holding a Spindle, after Domenico CampagnolaLandscape with an Old Woman Holding a Spindle, after Domenico CampagnolaLandscape with an Old Woman Holding a Spindle, after Domenico CampagnolaLandscape with an Old Woman Holding a Spindle, after Domenico CampagnolaLandscape with an Old Woman Holding a Spindle, after Domenico Campagnola

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.