View of the Villa Medici

Giovanni Battista Falda

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Seventeenth-century printmakers responded to the interest in ancient art and architecture, as well as contemporary topography, by creating elaborate series on all the splendors of Rome. In the latter part of the century, their publications included etchings such as this one by Giovanni Battista Falda. Such works, eagerly collected throughout Europe, stimulated the Grand Tour to Italy to study Roman art and architecture. The garden surrounding the Villa Medici on the Pincian Hill, a glimpse of which is seen here, was highly regarded for its grand central fountain and phenomenal collection of statues from classical antiquity. The window openings cut into the hedges, visible on the lower right of the etching, offered a magnificent view of the rooftops of Rome, with the dome of Saint Peter's visible at mid-distance.

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