Horizontal Panel with a Siren with Foliage for Legs and Two Children

Allaert Claesz.

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Panel with a siren at center with a human torso holding the ensd of scrolling tendrils that are in place of her legs. Two children are seated on the foliage at each side of her torso and the child at left is nursing. At far left and right, bull skulls.

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