Opera

Opera

Horace

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is the second book in Didot's five-part project known as the "Louvre editions" (1798–1816). Situated between The Works of Virgil and The Works of Racine, it marked the pivotal transition in Didot's suite between authors from antiquity and those from modern France. The twelve headpiece illustrations were designed by Charles Percier, who also designed the headpieces in the penultimate installment of Didot's project, La Fontaine's Fables.


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.