Two Costume Designs or Portrait Types

Two Costume Designs or Portrait Types

Anonymous, French, 18th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Page with two round portraits. The portrait on the left is painted in blue tones. It shows a woman turned towards the right. She is looking down and has her arms crossed in front of her. She is wearing a corseted bodice with buttons and a white fichu. She has a large hat with feathers and flowers. The portrait on the right is painted in warm ochre tones. It depicts a woman turned towards the right and looking back over her right shoulder. She is wearing a white checkered fichu crossed over her chest, and a tight bodice with a wide skirt. She also wears a large hat.


Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Two Costume Designs or Portrait TypesTwo Costume Designs or Portrait TypesTwo Costume Designs or Portrait TypesTwo Costume Designs or Portrait TypesTwo Costume Designs or Portrait Types

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.