Saint Jerome Hearing the Trumpet of the Last Judgment

Jusepe de Ribera (called Lo Spagnoletto)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is almost certainly the first of Ribera's two etchings depicting Saint Jerome in the wilderness, interrupted by the sound of a trumpet. Its date—1621—indicates that it postdates the painting of the same subject Ribera sent to the Colegiata in Osuna in Spain. The five paintings by Ribera in Osuna were early commissions received soon after the artist settled in Naples. Although the etching relates to the painting, there are many disparities. In the print the saint is shown seated and sharpening his pen rather than reclining and contemplating a skull, and the angel is suggested only by hands that emerge from clouds, clasping the trumpet. Such variations are typical of Ribera, who characteristically used printmaking to experiment with compositions that had already appeared in paint as well as to disseminate his images to a wider public.

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