May Day Celebrations at Xeuilley

Jacques Callot

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Callot incised the contour lines of his preparatory drawing (2008.74) in order to transfer the forms to the copper printing plate. In completing the etching, he added the girl carrying the small tree at left, a group playing a game with balls in the foreground near the wheeled cart, and increased to eight the number of musicians who have taken up residence in the tree. The printing process has reversed the direction of the composition.

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