David Roentgen and Company in Saint Petersburg

David Roentgen and Company in Saint Petersburg

Johann Friedrich Anthing

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

David Roentgen (second from right) is received by Strekaloff (with the long pipe), private secretary to the empress, to close a contract for a substantial order of furniture. Stephan Fedorovitsch, the imperial cabinet registrar, takes notes. The medallions above show Catherine the Great flanked by Grand Duke Paul and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna. The figure at left, who places a key in a strong box, wears the typical pointed cap of a German journeyman, and a plane on the table points to his profession. He could be Johann Wilhelm Kronrath, who accompanied David on his voyage to Russia. The boxes displayed nearby are typical examples of that extraordinary period when French market demands and the rising numbers of orders from Saint Petersburg overlapped, creating the heyday of the Roentgen workshop, with an annual turnover that often reached that of the renowned Meissen porcelain factory.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

David Roentgen and Company in Saint PetersburgDavid Roentgen and Company in Saint PetersburgDavid Roentgen and Company in Saint PetersburgDavid Roentgen and Company in Saint PetersburgDavid Roentgen and Company in Saint Petersburg

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.