The Baptism of Christ

The Baptism of Christ

Moncalvo (Guglielmo Caccia)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The drawing exhibits a sufficiently expressive quality of mark, rapidity of outlines and hatching, to suggest it is an autograph work by Moncalvo. Previous proposed attributions have been to the circle of Moncalvo (notes on the mount by Timothy Clifford, Mario di Giampaolo, Sylvie Béguin, endorsed by Carmen C. Bambach). Antonella Chiodo (oral communication on July 22, 2014) has connected the drawing to a fresco of a Baptism attributed to the workshop of Moncalvo in the parish church of San Salvatore Monferrato, province of Alessandria.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.