A Hedgehog (Erinaceus roumanicus)

Hans Hoffmann

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This endearing study of a hedgehog dates from the second half of the sixteenth century, when the detailed study and portrayal of flora and fauna came into focus more and more. Due to the specialist skills required to replicate every minute detail characteristic for a specific animal or plant, certain artists, such as Hans Hoffmann and Joris Hoefnagel developed as specialists in this area. While Hoffmann was also active as a painter of portraits and religious subjects, he is best remembered for his highly finished drawings after nature. His initial inspiration however, was not nature itself per se, but the highly-detailed studies of it, made by his famous predecessor Albrecht Dürer, whose works were still admired and highly coveted. Several collectors in Nuremberg, the native town of both artists, owned such studies by Dürer and provided Hoffmann with inspiration.

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