A View near the Arco Scuro, looking towards the Villa Medici, at Rome

Francis Towne

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Towne left Exeter, in southwest England, to visit Italy in 1780–81. After his return, a former student commissioned this Roman view showing a steep road falling away over a hill toward the Villa Medici (now the Académie Française). Towne made a series of sketches along the rural road behind the villa in November 1780 and used one as the basis of this later composition. His interest lay not in famous landmarks but in capturing effects of light falling across overgrown foliage, contrasted with patches of deep shade. Employing an innovative method to create tone, he began with layers of pure color, then moved on to pigments mixed with brown or black. This reversal of the traditional order allowed greater subtlety, particularly in the darks.

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