A Woman Standing at an Open Sash Window, a Small Boy Beside Her

A Woman Standing at an Open Sash Window, a Small Boy Beside Her

Anthonie Andriessen

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A young woman and a boy stand before an open window on what seems to be a sunny day. Dressed in eighteenth-century fashion, their physical appearance is highly stylized – a typical feature of the art of the time. Anthonie Andriessen was the lesser known brother of the eighteenth-century Dutch artist Jurriaan Andriessen (1742–1819). Both were active as painters of wallpaper, at a time when many a Dutch town house was decorated wall-hangings, showing lavish arcadian landscapes. It comes as no surprise that the majority of Andriessen’s oeuvre consists of views of forests and meadows. The present sheet, however, belongs to a small group of figure studies that he made. Andriessen’s nephew, Christiaan (1775–1848), himself an amateur draftsman, produced similar drawings of scenes of every-day life. Christiaan famously illustrated his diary with humorous sketches of recent events and anecdotes. Whether the uncle inspired his nephew or vice versa has yet to be determined.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A Woman Standing at an Open Sash Window, a Small Boy Beside HerA Woman Standing at an Open Sash Window, a Small Boy Beside HerA Woman Standing at an Open Sash Window, a Small Boy Beside HerA Woman Standing at an Open Sash Window, a Small Boy Beside HerA Woman Standing at an Open Sash Window, a Small Boy Beside Her

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.