Study of a Soldier

Victor-François-Eloi Biennourry

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this study for a Roman soldier, the artist focuses attention on the subtle modeling of the musculature of the arm while also exploring the chromatic effects of the ocher and blue pastels with red chalk. Biennourry possibly used the grid to reposition his model and produce studies of the same scale (see 1991.111) as he worked to determine the final costume and posture for this figure who features in his mural decorations in the Church of Saint-Séverin.

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