Adoration of the Magi, after Rubens

Adoration of the Magi, after Rubens

Eugène Delacroix

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Delacroix referred to reproductive prints in his copying practice even when he had the opportunity to see a painting in person. Rubens’s "Adoration of the Magi" (ca. 1616–17; now King’s College Chapel, Cambridge) was at Grosvenor House in London, where Delacroix might well have seen it during his 1825 visit to the English capital. However, this drawing, which concentrates on the kings and indicates the Holy Family only summarily, corresponds to the reversed orientation of an engraving.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Adoration of the Magi, after RubensAdoration of the Magi, after RubensAdoration of the Magi, after RubensAdoration of the Magi, after RubensAdoration of the Magi, after Rubens

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.