
Christ Presented to the People
Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn)
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Rembrandt treated this large drypoint almost as a painting, making marked changes to the composition as he reconceived the scene over and over. In the sixth state of the print, he removed much of the original crowd that stood directly below the main event and replaced it with two brick arches over an unidentified chasm. Between the arches he also added a sculpted male figure, lightly covered over in this, the final, state. The iconographic significance of these changes remains a mystery, but compositionally they serve to thrust the viewer into direct confrontation with Christ's fate.
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
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.