Hearing (Auditus), from "Quinque Sensuum"

Franz Cleyn

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Horizontal panel with the personification of Auditus (Hearing) shown as a female figure playing the lute beneath an arch at center. The arch is formed by the figures of two nudes turning into trees (Actaeon at left and Diana at right) and reaching to support a plaque at top center. Flanking the central scene are a horse (at left) and a stag (at right). Pairs of winged putti are shown at the bottom left and right corner, with the two at left holding an open book and those at right playing the bagpipe while seated on an orb. The series, consisting of a title and five plates with the senses personified by female figures, is titled 'Quinque sensuum descriptio, in eo picturae genere quod (Grottesche) vocant Itali' (Description of the Five Senses in that kind of painting that the Italians call grotesque). This set belongs to the 3rd edition, published in London by Robert Walton after 1646 (ca. 1655). An inscription on the title plate (45.101.1) credits Walton as the publisher ('SOULD BY RO: WALTON), but there are visible traces of the name and address of the publisher of previous editions.

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