A young man caressing an old woman

A young man caressing an old woman

Wenceslaus Hollar

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The source for this image depicting an amorous young man and older woman was attributed to Leonardo, who obsessively represented pairs of contrasting physiognomies: youths of ideally perfect beauty often face elderly types with physical deformities. Though the inscription on the print confirms the original work was in the Earl of Arundel’s collection, a drawing with this figural composition by Leonardo does not survive. In the master’s writings of the early 1490s, he quoted Petrarch underneath a sketch of a grotesque woman, "What is fair in mortal beings passes and does not last

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A young man caressing an old womanA young man caressing an old womanA young man caressing an old womanA young man caressing an old womanA young man caressing an old woman

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.