Bust of Minerva

Louis Léopold Boilly

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This study of a bust of Minerva set into a niche is related to Reunion of Artists, Boilly’s famous group portrait of contemporary artists, sculptors, and architects gathered in the studio of Jean-Baptiste Isabey (French, 1767–1855). The bust was part of a stylish up-to-the-minute décor designed by Charles Percier (French, 1764–1838) and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine (French, 1762–1853), the leading architects of the period. Indeed, Jean-Baptiste Isabey’s studio was featured in no fewer than five plates from their influential publication Recueil de décorations intérieures (1812) and embodied an up-to-the-moment style that was integral to the painting’s articulation of the artist’s place in society. In the finished work, Percier and Fontaine stand together, admiring a drawing just below the oversize statue.

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