Vue du Salon du Louvre en l'année 1753

Gabriel de Saint-Aubin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This print is a rare depiction of one of the biennial exhibitions of contemporary art mounted in the Louvre’s Salon Carré. Saint-Aubin captures the high pitch of anticipation as visitors from various swaths of Parisian society mount the stairwell and emerge into the light-filled gallery overlooking the Seine. Although he was never made a member of the Académie Royale, and thus was not permitted to exhibit at its Salons, Saint-Aubin created the most enduring images of these public events—as interested in the mix of viewers as in the displays themselves.

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