Sight (Visus), from the Fiver Senses

Sight (Visus), from the Fiver Senses

Maerten de Vos

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Prints of allegorical subjects were produced in England by the 1620s, reflecting this fashion on the Continent. The concept of the Five Senses personified by women and accompanied by companion animals was established by the Middle Ages, but the specific combinations of women and beasts illustrated in this set date to the mid-sixteenth century. The same iconography appears on the small cabinet decorated with the Five Senses (29.23.1).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Sight (Visus), from the Fiver SensesSight (Visus), from the Fiver SensesSight (Visus), from the Fiver SensesSight (Visus), from the Fiver SensesSight (Visus), from the Fiver Senses

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.