Tomb with Death Enthroned as a Sphinx

Tomb with Death Enthroned as a Sphinx

Louis Jean Desprez

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Introduced to the rudiments of etching while a student in Paris, Desprez went on to master the more complicated technique of aquatint after being sent to study at the French Academy in Rome. Visits to ancient ruins may have stimulated his series of four tombs, large sepulchral fantasies executed in a grainy aquatint, lending them a timeworn patina. In this image from the series, a skeleton adorned like a king or pharaoh guards a tomb inscribed with pseudo-hieroglyphics.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tomb with Death Enthroned as a SphinxTomb with Death Enthroned as a SphinxTomb with Death Enthroned as a SphinxTomb with Death Enthroned as a SphinxTomb with Death Enthroned as a Sphinx

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.