Drapery Study for "Castor and Pollux Freeing Helen"

Joseph-Ferdinand Lancrenon

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This sheet is a study for Castor and Pollux Freeing Helen, the assigned subject for the 1817 Prix de Rome competition, in which Lancrenon placed third. While the final painting’s location is unknown, this preparatory drawing focuses on the drapery of Helen. The nude male figure escorting her is outlined to her right. Lancrenon’s study echoes a practice promulgated in Jacques Louis David’s (French, 1748–1825) studio that encouraged studies of figures, nude and clothed, followed by sketches of heads. Here, the adept draftsman delineates Helen’s svelte form through long strokes of black chalk and subtle modeling with white—a style indebted to that of his teacher, Anne Louis Girodet-Trioson (French, 1767–1824).

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