Interior of Lemercier's Lithographic Printing House

Interior of Lemercier's Lithographic Printing House

Victor Adam

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

An early adapter of lithography after it arrived in France about 1800, Joseph Lemercier established one of the best-known printing houses of the nineteenth century. His firm produced a range of designs, from commercial objects like calendars and advertisements to works of art, and was known for embracing technological advances like photography and industrial production. This view of Lemercier’s workshop highlights its efficiency, as lithographers work at machines within a hall lined with the firm’s famously large collection of lithographic stones.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.