Landscape with Mountains

Antonio d'Enrico Tanzio (Tanzio da Varallo)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This landscape with its rugged mountain peaks and gently rolling plains delineated by luscious brush seems much like that of the Piedmont and the northwest part of Lombardy, the regions where the career of Tanzio da Varallo unfolded. The view is, in fact, evocative of the site of the artist's most famous work, the frescoes within the shrines of the Sacro Monte of Varallo. The drawing appears to have been done on the spot, which was an extremely rare practice for Italian artists of this period. The soft, atmospheric technique with red and white chalks on lightly tinted pink paper is typical of Tanzio, and it is an evident legacy of Leonardo da Vinci in Milan and Lombardy.

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