Eleonora, Wife of Ferdinand II, from the series Ferdinandus II et III Imperatorum Domus Austriacae...

Eleonora, Wife of Ferdinand II, from the series Ferdinandus II et III Imperatorum Domus Austriacae...

Pieter Van Sompel

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Eleonora of Gonzaga became Holy Roman Empress, German Queen, and Queen Consort of Hungary and Bohemia upon her marriage to the widowed Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. Raised at the ducal court in Mantua, a center of culture and science, she was exposed to and educated in foreign languages, history, music, and painting.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Eleonora, Wife of Ferdinand II, from the series Ferdinandus II et III Imperatorum Domus Austriacae...Eleonora, Wife of Ferdinand II, from the series Ferdinandus II et III Imperatorum Domus Austriacae...Eleonora, Wife of Ferdinand II, from the series Ferdinandus II et III Imperatorum Domus Austriacae...Eleonora, Wife of Ferdinand II, from the series Ferdinandus II et III Imperatorum Domus Austriacae...Eleonora, Wife of Ferdinand II, from the series Ferdinandus II et III Imperatorum Domus Austriacae...

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.