A Swarm of Flies above a Spider's Web

Alexandre-Louis Leloir

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Trained as a history painter, Leloir eventually abandoned academic, historical subjects in favor of genre scenes and book illustrations. He also founded the Société des Aquarellistes Français (Society of French Watercolorists). This delicate study contrasts the airy two-dimensional form of the spider’s web anchoring the lower left corner with the lifelike swarm of flies above, their size varied to suggest their placement in space, some nearer and some farther from the viewer.

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