The Virgin Adored by Saints (recto); Study of the Torso Belvedere (verso)

Peter Paul Rubens

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Recto: These rapidly executed sketches represent Rubens's first ideas for an altarpiece commissioned by the Church of the Augustinian Fathers in Antwerp, now in the city's Royal Museum of Fine Arts. At top center, Saint Catherine kneels before the Virgin and Christ Child, while to the left is a more detailed study of her drapery. Below, several other saints are depicted with gentle outlines. In the foreground, from left to right, Saints George, Sebastian, and William of Aquitaine pay homage to the Virgin. Although Rubens later altered the composition, he incorporated several elements from this early stage of his creative process into the painting. Verso: This drawing was made by Rubens as a young man on his first trip to Rome, in 1601–2. It is a study of the back view of the an antique sculpture dating to the first century B.C., which belonged to the Colonna family in the seventeenth century and is today in the Vatican Museums. Using red chalk and a technique of soft overlapping hatching, Rubens produced lifelike results that belie the marble material of his subject.

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