Apollo holding pipes in his right hand accompanied by Pegasus

Apollo holding pipes in his right hand accompanied by Pegasus

Angiolo Falconetto

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This etching is based on one of the two lunettes in the Loggia delle Muse in the Palazzo del Te in Mantua, painted around 1532 after designs by Giulio Romano. Here, the Hippocrene font, created by a blow from Pegasus' hoof, flows through large panpipes supported by Apollo. The laurel leaves that nourish the winged horse have also been fashioned into wreaths. In antiquity, the crown of laurel, a symbol of victory, was rarely the reward of poets. However, from the time of Petrarch's coronation on the Capitoline in Rome in 1341, the evergreen leaves were firmly linked to poetic fame.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Apollo holding pipes in his right hand accompanied by PegasusApollo holding pipes in his right hand accompanied by PegasusApollo holding pipes in his right hand accompanied by PegasusApollo holding pipes in his right hand accompanied by PegasusApollo holding pipes in his right hand accompanied by Pegasus

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.