The Moon in its Final Quarter

The Moon in its Final Quarter

Claude Mellan

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This modern-looking engraving is one of three remarkable prints by Mellan that depict the phases of the moon after sketches he made in Aix-en-Provence in early 1636. Mellan drew what he observed through a telescope, a Dutch invention from about 1608. The engravings were commissioned by Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, a French humanist, and Pierre Gassendi, a theologian with a passionate interest in astronomy. Mellan completed the prints upon his return to Paris in May 1637. Peiresc, who died in June of that year, never saw the finished works.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Moon in its Final QuarterThe Moon in its Final QuarterThe Moon in its Final QuarterThe Moon in its Final QuarterThe Moon in its Final Quarter

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.