Bust of a young woman with elaborate headdress, looking down.

Bust of a young woman with elaborate headdress, looking down.

Wenceslaus Hollar

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Head and shoulders of a young woman, directed to front, with head tilted to right, looking down; wearing a rope of pearls, jewel on a band, and ribbon in her hair, and loose gown tied over her left shoulder. After Ludovico Mazzolino

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bust of a young woman with elaborate headdress, looking down.Bust of a young woman with elaborate headdress, looking down.Bust of a young woman with elaborate headdress, looking down.Bust of a young woman with elaborate headdress, looking down.Bust of a young woman with elaborate headdress, looking down.

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.