Preparatory Drawing for an Illustration of a Seventeenth-Century Dutch Tankard from the Demidov Collection

Preparatory Drawing for an Illustration of a Seventeenth-Century Dutch Tankard from the Demidov Collection

C. Prosdocimi

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This drawing shows a tankard (covered drinking vessel) that was part of the Demidov Collection (Villa San Donato, Italy). According to the description on the drawing, the vessel was executed in gilt-silver, and was made in the Netherlands. The lion on the lid is said to refer to the city of Haarlem. The Demidov collection was dispersed at sales in Paris in 1863, on 21 February and 3 March 1870, and at the Villa San Donato (near Florence) in March 1880. The tankard was sold in the latter sale (lot 1259) and this drawing was made as the preparatory drawing for the corresponding illustration in the auction catalog. The object is also described in the "Dictionnaire de l'art, de la curiosité et du bibelot", published in Paris in 1883.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Preparatory Drawing for an Illustration of a Seventeenth-Century Dutch Tankard from the Demidov CollectionPreparatory Drawing for an Illustration of a Seventeenth-Century Dutch Tankard from the Demidov CollectionPreparatory Drawing for an Illustration of a Seventeenth-Century Dutch Tankard from the Demidov CollectionPreparatory Drawing for an Illustration of a Seventeenth-Century Dutch Tankard from the Demidov CollectionPreparatory Drawing for an Illustration of a Seventeenth-Century Dutch Tankard from the Demidov Collection

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.