Study of a Blasted Tree Trunk and Branches

Simon de Vlieger

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A native of Rotterdam, de Vlieger was one of the leading marine and landscape painters of the early seventeenth century. His drawings, like his paintings, were admired for their silvery light effects, often a result of employing black and white chalk on blue paper. In this sheet, he explores the play of light and shadow on a clump of tree stumps.

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