A soldier shaking the powder from the top of the pan, from the Musketeers series, plate 19, in Wapenhandelinghe van Roers Musquetten Ende Spiessen (The Exercise of Arms)

A soldier shaking the powder from the top of the pan, from the Musketeers series, plate 19, in Wapenhandelinghe van Roers Musquetten Ende Spiessen (The Exercise of Arms)

Jacques de Gheyn II

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

From a series of 117 numbered plates from the military drill manual, "Wapenhandelinghe van Roers Musquetten ende Speissen" (The Exercise of Arms). The series is divided into three sets: Marksmen (42 plates), Musketeers (43 plates), and Lansquenets (32 plates). The Exercise of Arms was first published as a complete volume in 1608, and several more editions followed shortly after, with Dutch, French, German, English, and Danish versions produced.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A soldier shaking the powder from the top of the pan, from the Musketeers series, plate 19, in Wapenhandelinghe van Roers Musquetten Ende Spiessen (The Exercise of Arms)A soldier shaking the powder from the top of the pan, from the Musketeers series, plate 19, in Wapenhandelinghe van Roers Musquetten Ende Spiessen (The Exercise of Arms)A soldier shaking the powder from the top of the pan, from the Musketeers series, plate 19, in Wapenhandelinghe van Roers Musquetten Ende Spiessen (The Exercise of Arms)A soldier shaking the powder from the top of the pan, from the Musketeers series, plate 19, in Wapenhandelinghe van Roers Musquetten Ende Spiessen (The Exercise of Arms)A soldier shaking the powder from the top of the pan, from the Musketeers series, plate 19, in Wapenhandelinghe van Roers Musquetten Ende Spiessen (The Exercise of Arms)

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.