The Benediction

Jacques André Portail

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A painter and draftsman, Portail was given the title Dessinateur du Roi in 1738 and by 1740 held numerous positions at the French court at Versailles. In 1746 he was made a member of the Académie royale as a still-life painter, although today he is best known for his meticulous and observant chalk drawings. The old man who modelled for the Met's drawing appears in many works by Portail, sometimes as a saint and other times as a genre figure, as here. The perfect state of preservation of this drawing allows one to appreciate Portail’s detailed, almost trompe-l’oeil, technique. From the steaming bowl of porridge, to the folds in the tablecloth, to the old man’s frayed clothing, all is rendered in a highly tactile manner. Portail was particularly favored by the royal mistress, Madame de Pompadour, who owned this drawing. Perrin Stein (2009)

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