St. Jerome reading

Isaac Oliver

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Oliver's father was a goldsmith and pewterer, who arrived in London 1568 as a Protestant refugee from Rouen, France. After studies with Nicholas Hilliard, Oliver made several Continental trips, became known internationally for painting miniatures and small histories, and was appointed by Queen Anne in 1605 as "Painter for the art of limning." This finely executed drawing uses pen and brown ink, and gray wash to describe the early theologian St. Jerome reading. The delicate stippling around the face is a miniaturist technique, and the work may have been made in preparation for a small-scale devotional painting.

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