Architectural Capriccio with a Monumental Arch

Jean Nicolas Servandoni

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Born in Florence and trained in Rome, Servandoni went to Paris in 1724. A versatile artist with a strong knowledge of perspective and antiquity, he found success in a variety of fields, from theater design to courtly festivals, with their fanciful temporary structures. Although he was not formally trained in architecture, he won the 1732 competition to design the façade of Saint Sulpice, which earned him the title Architecte du Roi. He also produced paintings in oil and gouache. They are typically architectural capricci that recall the layered perspective of stage sets, as here, where a crumbling archway frames a distant view of a triumphal arch. Perrin Stein, March 2015

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