Tobias and the Angel (large plate)

Hendrick Goudt

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In his lifetime Goudt produced a total of just seven prints, all after paintings by the German artist Adam Elsheimer, with whom he shared a residence in Rome from about 1604 to 1610. In this engraving, made after Goudt’s return to his native Netherlands, he employed dense crosshatching to achieve remarkably dark tonalities and subtle gradations. These effects are especially evident in the shadowy middle distance, where tiny figures and animals can be discerned along the water’s edge.

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