Christ on the Cross, from "The Passion of Christ"

Christ on the Cross, from "The Passion of Christ"

Hendrick Goltzius

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Between 1596 and 1598 Goltzius engraved this series of twelve prints illustrating the Passion of Christ. They reflect the influence of the Netherlandish artist Lucas van Leyden, in both the figure types and the actual engraving technique. In contrast to his normal graphic style, which was characterized by a dramatic line that swells and tapers around the figures and background, here Goltzius uses thin even lines crossed with long straight hatching lines that are typically found in Lucas’s prints. In Northern Europe at the end of the sixteenth century there was a revival of interest in the works of Lucas and this series can be seen within that larger context. So, too, can Goltzius’s famous Pietà modeled after Albrecht Dürer and the Circumcision and the Adoration of the Magi from his series the Life of the Virgin. The Passion of Christ was extremely popular during Goltzius’s own lifetime and well beyond. This is evidenced by a very deceptive set of copies produced in Goltzius’s own studio and six additional sets of copies dating from the late 1590s to the mid-seventeenth century. In addition to having two sets of the Goltzius’s original prints, the Met has three different sets of copies and a single plate from a fourth (see 51.501.168(1-12), 53.601.336(25-36) 51.501169(1-12) and 51.501.170).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Christ on the Cross, from "The Passion of Christ"Christ on the Cross, from "The Passion of Christ"Christ on the Cross, from "The Passion of Christ"Christ on the Cross, from "The Passion of Christ"Christ on the Cross, from "The Passion of Christ"

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.