Vase with Cherubs and a Helmet

René Boyvin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Depiction of a vase or ewer. The vase is covered by a lid and has one handle, shaped like a hybrid bird-like creature. The body of the vase is decorated with a satyr-like mask from whose ears two garlands spring forth. The print is part of a series of 12 vases said to be designed by Rosso Fiorentino and Polidoro da Caravaggio and initially engraved and published by René Boyvin. The current series was first published by Claes Jansz. Visscher in the early seventeenth century and subsequently also by Frederik de Wit.

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