The Ratcatcher

Abraham Bosse

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

"A noble gentleman who in combat made the whole earth tremble, Through a misfortune of war goes crying death to rats." Bosse, who wrote a treatise on etching based on the innovations of Jacq"ues Callot-with whom he had worked-and who developed a new means of perspective construction that he taught in the French Royal Academy for over a decade, is best known for his numerous prints of everyday Parisian life. In his series of twelve itinerant tradesmen, the crisp and controlled etched line and the precisely defined spatial settings lend polish to the figures, even to the ragged, peg-legged rat catcher.

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