Sketchbook of a Journey to the Château d'Eu

Pierre François Léonard Fontaine

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Fontaine, the leading architect of the Napoleonic period, filled this sketchbook with watercolors while traveling to the Château d’Eu in Normandy to assess its suitability for conversion into an imperial palace. He recorded many of the scenic vistas he encountered en route, such as this cliff-top view over a coastal town. Fontaine eventually renovated the château into a summer palace for the future King Louis Philippe I.

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