The House of Cards

Pierre Filloeul

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Derived from the tradition of moralizing prints, the subject of a child building a house of cards became a popular motif during the eighteenth century. This etching is based on a 1735 painting by Chardin, one of the most celebrated treatments of the theme. In the print, Filloeul faithfully reproduces Chardin’s composition, expressing the ephemeral nature of human endeavors through the image of a boy engrossed in the construction of an object doomed for destruction. In the caption, Filloeul reconnects Chardin’s image with the moralizing tradition by suggesting that adults still act like children by building foolish projects.

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