Apotheosis of George Washington

Etienne Pallière

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This large chalk drawing is one of two attributed to Pallière in The Met collection. They likely served as preparatory studies for an allegorical work that has not survived, created perhaps for a commemorative ceremony in Paris soon after the president’s death. Victory carries Washington into heaven while Fame, depicted twice, announces his accomplishments by trumpet and inscribes them on a pillar. At right the god Zeus’s chains have been loosened. Mourning figures on the left represent the Monarchy, Liberty, America, and Atropos, the Fate said to cut the thread of life. America, ambiguous in gender and wearing a feather skirt and headdress, bears a physiognomic resemblance to Native Americans.

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art