Costume Design

Pierre-Numa Bassaget, called Numa

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Drawing with a woman dressed with a full-skirted dress with puff sleeves and layered, pleated collar, and featuring floral motifs, worn with an apron with semi-abstract motifs tied around the waist, standing behind a round table, around which stand several hats, with elaborate designs adorned with feathers, bundles of flowers and leaves, and ribbons, featuring the fashionable styles of the time.

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