Kitchen Scene

Cornelis Dusart

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In a kitchen, two peasants enjoy a meal of herring, bread, and butter set atop an improvised table. Dusart, a pupil of Adriaen van Ostade, followed closely in his master's footsteps and indeed took over the contents of Ostade's studio after the artist's death in 1685. Like his teacher, Dusart produced beautiful watercolors of peasant scenes. While his subject matter derives from that of Ostade, Dusart's technique and figure style are more elegant and refined. The drawing has been identified in the past as an illustration of Taste from a series of the Senses but was more likely meant as an independent piece.

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