Portrait of the Rabe Children: Hermann, age 14 and Edmond, age 7; verso: proof before corrections of small faults in the images

Portrait of the Rabe Children: Hermann, age 14 and Edmond, age 7; verso: proof before corrections of small faults in the images

Johann Gottfried Schadow

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Schadow worked primarily as a Neoclassical sculptor; among his many works is the ornamentation on the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. He was also an early practitioner of lithography, which he took up during the second half of his career; printmaking remained more of a hobby. Schadow created several lithographic portraits of children including this one depicting the two sons of Martin Friedrich Rabe, an architect. According to his diary, Schadow sketched the children on November 28, 1822, and created the lithograph on December 2. That very day, he may have produced this proof impression, which displays an unfinished state on one side and a more finished one, shown here, on the other.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Portrait of the Rabe Children: Hermann, age 14 and Edmond, age 7; verso: proof before corrections of small faults in the imagesPortrait of the Rabe Children: Hermann, age 14 and Edmond, age 7; verso: proof before corrections of small faults in the imagesPortrait of the Rabe Children: Hermann, age 14 and Edmond, age 7; verso: proof before corrections of small faults in the imagesPortrait of the Rabe Children: Hermann, age 14 and Edmond, age 7; verso: proof before corrections of small faults in the imagesPortrait of the Rabe Children: Hermann, age 14 and Edmond, age 7; verso: proof before corrections of small faults in the images

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.