The Penitent St. Jerome

Jost Amman

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is one of the earliest known drawings by Amman, a renowned painter, printmaker, and designer who was barely twenty when he made this masterful copy after a woodcut by Lucas Cranach the Elder (see 41.1.160). The young artist replaced the arms of the Saxon ruling family with those of his own family and added his monogram, "JAZ" (Jost Amman of Zurich), on the page of the open book held by the saint, possibly out of pride in his work. High-quality, accurate copies like this would have been cherished by collectors, functioning as substitutes for printed impressions.

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