The Armoire

Jean Honoré Fragonard

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

L'armoire, one of Fragonard's largest and most skillful etchings, became hugely popular as soon as its sale was announced in the Journal de Paris in November 1778. The composition is dominated by two furious parents who, in a rush of movement, fling open a cupboard door to reveal their daughter's embarrassed lover. The unmade bed on the right and the strategic placing of the young man's hat offer further evidence of the amorous nature of the interrupted encounter. Fragonard enlivened the amusing scene with his spirited and confident handling of the etching needle and brilliantly achieved rich tonal effects with a complex and varied system of lines and hatching.

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