Man Protected by the Shield of Faith

Maarten van Heemskerck

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Maarten van Heemskerck arrived in Rome in the early summer of 1532. He stayed about four or five years in Italy, primarily concentrating on drawing ruins, classical sculpture, landscapes, and city views. He also studied the works of contemporary Italian artists, especially Michelangelo and Giulio Romano. The present allegorical drawing was created after the artist's return to the Netherlands. It depicts Satan sitting on a rug decorated with the Seven Vices, and hurling burning arrows from atop a globe at a praying man. The personification of faith, a woman holding a cross and a Bible, protects the man by holding a shield above his head. Delicate hatching in pen and brown ink reveals the muscular forms of the figures of the devil and the praying man. The interest in their anatomy demonstrates the influence of Michelangelo and classical sculpture on Heemskerck's work. Like many of the artist's drawings, a print was made after this work. These prints were extremely important in the dissemination throughout Northern Europe of the Mannerist style Heemskerck had acquired in Italy.

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