A Forest with Two Men Conversing

Jacobus Pelgrom

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A large, lifeless beech, its bare branches writhing toward the sky, dominates this lush forest scene; the dead tree stands as a reminder of the brevity of life. Pelgrom was a landscape painter as well as a draftsman whose drawings showcase his careful study of trees in nature. He often drew the forests in the province of Gelderland along the eastern border of The Netherlands. Its hilly, romantic terrain differed from the flat and tamed countryside around Amsterdam where the artist lived.

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