Macbeth III

Wilhelm Lehmbruck

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Known best as a sculptor, Lehmbruck also made etchings and drypoints in his last decade. This example belongs to a series he devoted to Lady Macbeth, a fearsome figure in Shakespeare's play who encourages her husband to murder King Duncan as a means to the throne, and is herself eventually consumed by guilt. Here, she wears a crown, clutches a dagger and is surrounded by corpses and wraiths, including a young mother who holds a child up like a totem. Lembruck was traumatized by his service in an army hospital during the First World War and created this print a year before committing suicide.

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