Hamlet and Laertes at the Tomb of Ophelia

Hamlet and Laertes at the Tomb of Ophelia

Eugène Delacroix

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This composition was one of the three omitted from the 1843 publication of "Hamlet." (Though it was eventually included in a posthumous edition of the book published in 1864.) Perhaps Delacroix decided the preceding lithograph of the gravediggers was sufficient to represent act 5, scene 1. In reference to this work, Alfred Robaut, one of the first scholars of Delacroix’s drawings, wrote in 1885: "Delacroix enjoyed tracing his compositions several times, and the more he advanced, the more he simplified, endeavoring to render in ten strokes of the pencil what he had first expressed in one hundred." Tracing thus enabled the artist to hone his composition, so that when it came time to draw the design on the lithographic stone, his task was clear and defined.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hamlet and Laertes at the Tomb of OpheliaHamlet and Laertes at the Tomb of OpheliaHamlet and Laertes at the Tomb of OpheliaHamlet and Laertes at the Tomb of OpheliaHamlet and Laertes at the Tomb of Ophelia

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.