Allegory of the Months February and March

Allegory of the Months February and March

Joos de Momper the Younger

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This colorful landscape by Joos de Momper is an allegory of the months February and March. It once belonged to a series of six sheets that each illustrated two consequtive months of the year. This kind of allegorical imagery was extremely popular in early modern Europe. The pictures were not intended to be merely appealing to the eye but also to the mind: they needed to be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning. Although a modern day viewer may be lost in translation, the contemporary audience would have readily understood that this landscape symbolized the winter months, for the pruning of trees, depicted on the right, was an activity, typically reserved for March. A second drawing that belonged to the same allegorical series, was sold at auction in 2007. It depicts the months December and January, and was based directly on the well-known painting Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525–69, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. no. GG 1838). More examples of allegorical imagery by De Momper are known: the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam holds nine preparatory drawings, equally intended for a seriest of months of the year. Our drawing, as far as we know, was never brought into print. Because of its high finish, it is likely that the drawing was intended to be sold on the open market as a set together with its companion pieces.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Allegory of the Months February and MarchAllegory of the Months February and MarchAllegory of the Months February and MarchAllegory of the Months February and MarchAllegory of the Months February and March

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.