The River Elbe in Moonlight

The River Elbe in Moonlight

Johan Christian Dahl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dahl ended an extensive study tour of the Continent in Dresden and made it his home thereafter, seldom returning to Norway. His landscapes often fell under the spell of the great Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), with whom he shared a house in Dresden.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The River Elbe in MoonlightThe River Elbe in MoonlightThe River Elbe in MoonlightThe River Elbe in MoonlightThe River Elbe in Moonlight

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.