Sphinx with Two Bodies

Wenceslaus Hollar

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Female sphinx standing to front with basket of flowers on her head, over two lions, lying on the ground, their heads obscured. From a series of six plates, etched by Hollar after drawings by Giulio Romano from the collection of Nicolas Lanier, designs for stucco medallions at the Palazzo Te in Mantua.

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