Standing Figure in a Long Coat

Standing Figure in a Long Coat

Romain Cazes

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This drawing of a coat worn by a lightly sketched form comes from a group of eleven sheets once attribued to Frederic Lord Leighton, but now identified as by Romain Cazes. Cazes was a student of Ingres who painted murals in churches in both Paris and southwest France, and these drawings demonstrate his adherance to academic practice. The latter directs artists to make separate studies of posed nude figures and their garments as compositions are planned. The group were donated to The Museum by Albert Eugene Gallatin, an influential New York collector and critic who promoted "Art for Art's Sake," insisting that aesthetics, rather than narrative or moral concerns, underpins enduring art.

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.