Portrait of Jan van Leiden, a Dutchman and leader of the Münster Anabaptists

Portrait of Jan van Leiden, a Dutchman and leader of the Münster Anabaptists

Jan Muller

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

At the end of the sixteenth and early in the seventeenth century, Dutch Mannerists turned their attention to the German master Albrecht Dürer and other northern Renaissance artists, creating a revival of interest in their works. Printmakers copied these earlier designs or made new compositions emulating the style of their predecessors. Muller’s Portrait of Jan van Leiden and its pair, a Portrait of Bernt Knipperdolling (accession no. 17.3.953), were part of this revival. They are copies in reverse of engravings by the German follower of Dürer, Heinrich Aldegrever. Like Dürer, Aldegrever portrayed important contemporary figures, such as these of two radical Anabaptists who led a rebellion in Münster between 1534 and 1535, which led tothe establishment of a communal sectarian government. Muller captures the intricate details of the sitters’ costume and features, as well Aldegrever’s delicate engraving technique.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Portrait of Jan van Leiden, a Dutchman and leader of the Münster AnabaptistsPortrait of Jan van Leiden, a Dutchman and leader of the Münster AnabaptistsPortrait of Jan van Leiden, a Dutchman and leader of the Münster AnabaptistsPortrait of Jan van Leiden, a Dutchman and leader of the Münster AnabaptistsPortrait of Jan van Leiden, a Dutchman and leader of the Münster Anabaptists

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.