Landscape with water-mill and figures fishing in boat on the left river on the right, from the series 'Italian landscapes' (Diverse vedute designate in Fiorenza / Paysages italiens)

Jacques Callot

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This print is from a series of twelve entitled “Diverse vedute designate in Fiorenza / Paysages Italiens” (Different views of Italian Landscapes designed in Florence) that has generally been attributed to Jacques Callot’s apprentice, François Collignon. The set was first published after 1630 by Israël Henriet, whose name appears on these prints. But the date of the execution of the plates themselves, and indeed their attribution to Callot, has been called into question. Callot may have designed the landscapes while he was in Italy, but it is also possible that the drawings were made and etched by French artist Israel Silvestre after Callot’s death, based on ideas found in drawings in the possession of Henriet. The uncertainty surrounding the prints’ attribution demonstrates Callot’s fame and the popularity of his work during the seventeenth century.

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