Mountainous Landscape with a River

Johann Wilhelm Schirmer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Schirmer, a specialist in mountainous landscape views, made this drawing during one of his early trips to Switzerland. Alpine peaks rise in the distance and pine trees—rendered with short zigzagging strokes—spread over the shadowy hills at left. In the foreground, a deft combination of ink, watercolor, and bare paper depicts the textured surface of the sunlit rockface and the visual effect of cascading water. At center, a tiny figure scales the steep slope while deer graze above, conveying the majestic scale of this environment.

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