The Entrance of Charlemagne into Pavia

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Schnorr von Carolsfeld was a leading member of the Nazarenes, a group of Northern artists who favored biblical and erudite literary themes and adopted a clear, linear manner reminiscent of that of their Renaissance idols. This large, highly finished sheet was a study for a wall painting in the Munich Residenz, destroyed in World War II. The subject is the military victory of Charles the Great over the Lombards in 774.

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