Saint William of Maleval, hands tied with rope fastened to a tree

Saint William of Maleval, hands tied with rope fastened to a tree

Salvator Rosa

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

St. William was an immoral soldier who later took up a monastic life. He is depicted here doing penitence in a forested valley in a region of Siena known as Maleval. Rosa presents the saint as a solitary penitent figure tensely situated in an uncomfortable pose and quietly contemplating a cross. The loneliness of the figure is augmented by the jagged style in which the forest is rendered, especially through the extreme gradations of shading. The theme of the contemplative penitent is common in works by Rosa as also seen in the Metropolitan's Self-Portrait (21.105) where the artist represents himself as a scholarly penitent.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Saint William of Maleval, hands tied with rope fastened to a treeSaint William of Maleval, hands tied with rope fastened to a treeSaint William of Maleval, hands tied with rope fastened to a treeSaint William of Maleval, hands tied with rope fastened to a treeSaint William of Maleval, hands tied with rope fastened to a tree

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.