The Four Windmills

The Four Windmills

Wenceslaus Hollar

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The four windmills; two-wheeled cart, two wagons and two women walking carrying baskets seen from behind in the foreground; man with two sacks and windmills by the road on left, spire seen among trees in distance on right; after Jan Brueghel the elder

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Four WindmillsThe Four WindmillsThe Four WindmillsThe Four WindmillsThe Four Windmills

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.