The Trojans repulsing the Greeks

Giovanni Battista Scultori

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The presence of the chariot of Poseidon (known to the Romans as Neptune) abandoned in the waves at left, suggests that the episode represented here is from Book 14 of Homer's epic poem 'Iliad'. The heroic nude in the foreground may be the lord of the sea, described as leading the Greeks with a long sword in hand. The warrior lying on the ground beneath him, protected by a comrade, could be the Trojan prince Hector, struck down by a stone soon after Poseidon entered the battle. Inspired by the ships in a fragmentary Greek relief of the second century A.D. (Museo Archeologico, Venice), Scultori, who was also a sculptor and a master of stuccowork, obviously took pleasure in elaborating their decoration.

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