Saint Martin and the Beggar

Saint Martin and the Beggar

Vittore Carpaccio

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This small study appears to have been preparatory for an altarpiece in the Zara Cathedral, which Carpaccio probably undertook in 1493; although the drawing omits the landscape in the painting, it represents many other details of similar design. The subject is based on an episode from the life of Saint Martin of Tours (ca. 315-397 A.D.), as told in Jacobus de Voragine's 'Golden Legend.' The saint, a young soldier in the Roman army, is seen here on horseback, in the act of cutting off a piece from his cloak with his sword to clothe the beggar standing by his side toward the center. Vittore Carpaccio was the leading painter of late fifteenth-century Venice, along with Giovanni and Gentile Bellini.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Saint Martin and the BeggarSaint Martin and the BeggarSaint Martin and the BeggarSaint Martin and the BeggarSaint Martin and the Beggar

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.