Project for a Chinese Pavillion

Michel Barthelemy Hazon

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The French architect Hazon made this design of a garden pavilion at the request of the Marquis de Marigny, who wished to add several Chinese follies to his gardens at the Château Menars. While this is one of only a few private commissions that Hazon received from the marquis, the two men knew each other well through their employment within the Bâtiments du Roi—the governing body that maintained the buildings belonging to the French crown. The men owed their respective appointments to the infamous mistress of King Louis XV, Madame de Pompadour, who was the sister of the marquis and a longstanding patron of Hazon’s work.

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