The Chinese Masquerade (La Mascarade chinoise)

Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of Pierre's most accomplished etchings, this print commemorates an event that took place shortly before his arrival in Rome, when French students took part in the festivities marking the pre-Lenten celebration of Carnival. With pomp and whimsy in equal measure, the students dressed up as Chinese dignitaries and joined the procession along the Corso, passing in front of the Palazzo Mancini, the grand and centrally located quarters of the French Academy in Rome.

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